CHAPTER IX.

"THE WORLD IS SO CRUEL."

"There's a horse-fair at Kilmacredden on Saturday," said Lord Glengall. "I was thinking you might find time to come along with me and see what's to be picked up."

"It isn't time I'd be wanting," said Mr. Graydon, "and you know it isn't inclination."

"Very well, then, you'll come. We'll have to make an early start and give the mare her time over the mountain. Will four o'clock do?"

"For me, yes. Will you get up on Saturday morning and see that there's a cup of tea ready for me by four o'clock?"

This to Sylvia, who was demurely making tea at a side-table.

"You know I will. Next to being up all night I like to get up before daybreak."

Lord Glengall broke into a slow smile as he turned to look at the speaker. He sat astride a small chair, with his chin resting on the back. He still wore the frieze coat which he had on when he entered; and with his clean-shaven, melancholy face and deep-set eyes, he looked like nothing so much as a hard-pressed mountain farmer, just as Sylvia had described him. Yet the smile was one of great sweetness, and the mingled simplicity and shrewdness of the face were far from being unattractive.

"'Tis well for you, Graydon," he said, "to have little girls to do the like for you."

"You must marry, Glengall, and be properly taken care of," said Mr. Graydon.

"I'm past marrying," said Lord Glengall; "I leave that to the girls and boys."

"They'd make foolish marriages," said Sylvia, "if they were left to themselves."

Lord Glengall smiled more broadly.

"'Tis a prudent little woman you're owning, Graydon," he said. "You should turn match-maker, Miss Sylvia."

"For you, Lord Glengall?"

"I'll go bail you'd find no one to have me, Miss Sylvia."

"If I do will you entertain the proposal, Lord Glengall?"

"Provided she's not too old and will marry me for myself."

"I think I can find her for you, Lord Glengall."

"Come, Sylvia, give Glengall his tea, and don't be talking nonsense," said Mr. Graydon, laughing.

"Here it is for you, Lord Glengall, just as you like it--hot, strong and sweet."

"Thank you, Miss Sylvia; it's as good as ever I made for myself in the Bush."

The two men fell to talking of business matters, while Sylvia manipulated the teacups. Now and again she looked towards the door. Mary was finishing her letter to Mick in the chilly room upstairs, and Pamela had taken the dogs for a walk.

"If they don't come soon," muttered Sylvia over her teacup, "this tea won't be fit to drink, and Bridget's in no humour to make more."

A rat-tat at the hall-door knocker interrupted her meditations.

"Some of those young fellows from the barracks, Sylvia," suggested her father.

"It can't be," said Sylvia. "Mr. Baker was here yesterday, and Mr. De Quincy on Tuesday, and Captain Vavasour's coming to-morrow."

"Lady Jane Trevithick," announced Bridget, flinging the door open.

"Oh, dear!" muttered Sylvia; "and it's one of Bridget's bad days when she won't wear an apron. Now, where has the woman dropped from?"

Lady Jane swept across the room magnificent in purple and sables.

"How do you do?" said Mr. Graydon, going to meet her. "This _is_ a pleasure. My daughter, Lady Jane. My friend, Glengall. No, don't sit there. There's a dog in that chair."

For a self-possessed woman Lady Jane looked a little flurried. Without meeting her host's gaze, she took the chair he handed her, and turned it so that she sat with her back to the light. She bowed in answer to his introductions, and, having seated herself, spoke in a voice which she tried hard to keep under control.

"I find myself unexpectedly almost a neighbour of yours, Mr. Graydon, and I did myself the pleasure of calling."

"You are very good, Lady Jane."

He looked at her with kindly scrutiny. Perhaps he was trying to find in the middle-aged face the features of the proud and stately girl who had married his dearest friend years ago. If so, the darkness in which she sat baffled him.

"I am staying with Mr. Verschoyle," she went on; "I suppose you count him a neighbour?"

"Yes, as country neighbours go. I have met him sometimes on the Bench. I was not aware you knew him."

Lady Jane did not say that she had disinterred an old and almost forgotten invitation in order to lead up to this visit.

"I knew him years ago," she said. "But, by the way, have you heard from my boy?"

"Not directly--nothing since your Ladyship's letter."

"That is careless of Anthony! But he is nursing his uncle, you know, and I daresay is finding time for a little mild amusement as well."

"Trevithick is no better?"

"No, I am sorry to say. There is no saying when he will be better, or if he will ever be really better. My son thinks he ought to stay with him, however."

"I am sure he is right," said Mr. Graydon, heartily.

"And this is--Pamela, I suppose?" said Lady Jane, turning her head with forced graciousness to Sylvia, who was bringing her her tea.

"No; Pam will be here presently. This is Sylvia, my youngest girl."

"I am very much indebted to you all, Mr. Graydon, for making my son so happy. He was grieved not to return to you, I know."

Still her eyes never met those of her host.

Seeing that he was practically ignored in the conversation, Lord Glengall got up awkwardly, and with a bow to the visitor, and an affectionate nod to Sylvia, took himself off.

"Ugh!" said Lady Jane to herself; "he smells of the stables! And to think of Archie Graydon coming down to associate with such bucolics!"

Mary came in a little later and was introduced. Then came Pam. The February air had blown a fitful flame into her cheeks, and when she entered the drawing-room, not knowing there was a visitor, Lady Jane's name blew the flame higher, and then extinguished it altogether.

Her father watched her curiously, as she stood looking gravely down into Lady Jane's face. The lady, who could be gracious when she liked, held Pamela's hand a minute, and there was a caress in her voice as she spoke to her.

"I can't feel," she said to Mr. Graydon, "that your girls are strangers to me. I have heard such charming things about them from my son."

"Well, indeed," said Mr. Graydon, to whom belief in the goodwill of all the world came easily, "I should hope that we need not be strangers to a Trevithick. I have never forgotten my love for Gerald, Lady Jane."

"He was devoted to you," said the widow.

No one could have supposed from Lady Jane's manner that the visit was a painful and difficult ordeal to her. Yet, when she was seated in her carriage again, and had driven out of sight of Mr. Graydon, bowing bare-headed on the doorstep, she drew a sigh of actual physical relief.

Mr. Graydon returned to the drawing-room, rubbing his hands together.

"What a charming woman!" he said, coming up to the fire.

"I call her a cat!" said Sylvia, concisely.

"Oh, Sylvia!" cried Mary Graydon and her father simultaneously; but Pamela said nothing. Lady Jane, for all her _empressement_, had not made Pamela believe in her; indeed, Lady Jane was not sufficiently an actress to deceive any but the most simple people. It was new to her to play a part--to pretend fondness and friendship where she felt arrogant dislike; and, to give her her due, she had played it badly.

The day after Mr. Graydon had gone to the horse-fair with Lord Glengall, he came out of the study as Pamela was going languidly upstairs, and called her in. He put her in a comfortable chair by the fire, and then stood leaning on the dusty mantelpiece, and regarding her with a wistful and tender gaze.

"Not well, Pam?" he said at last.

"A little out-of-sorts," she answered, dropping her eyes before his gaze.

"When did it begin, Pam--this being out-of-sorts? Up to Christmas I thought you were blooming like a wild rose."

Pamela made a movement as if to escape.

"One is not always just the same," she said; "and you fancy things, dad."

"Glengall noticed it, too. Don't go, child--we haven't finished our conversation."

"Lord Glengall is as fatherly to us as you are. He is always watching us like a mother-hen over a brood of ducklings."

Pamela spoke with an attempt at her old sparkle, but her face retained the cold dulness which had fallen upon it of late, and which made the father's heart ache to see it.

"Glengall is a good fellow, Pam," he said, wistfully.

"He's a dear," said Pam, in her listless way.

"A girl might do worse than marry Glengall."

"That's what Sylvia says."

"Sylvia's a wise child. And what do you think, Pam?"

"I?--I haven't thought about it."

"Could you think of it, Pam?"

Pamela looked at him incredulously.

"Poor Glengall would like to marry you, Pam. He's troubled about you, poor fellow. He'd like to take you away, and show you all the beautiful world, and lavish his wealth upon you. Could you do it, Pam?"

To his consternation, Pam put down her head on the study-table, and burst into tears.

"There, Pam, there! I didn't mean to distress you, and I know Glengall wouldn't for the world. I only told you because I thought you ought to know. He has no hope at all himself--and would never ask you, I am sure. Only he is so good. I should know a little girl of mine was safe with him."

Pam still sobbed, with her face buried in the dusty papers.

"There, there, child!" said her father, "don't think about it any more. Poor Glengall! Of course, I know he's too old, and you are only a child; and he'd be the first to say the young should marry the young."

"I don't want to marry anyone," sobbed Pam. "Why can't I join a sisterhood and be at peace?"

Mr. Graydon passed his hand fondly over the rumpled curls.

"You'd hate it, Pam, that's what you would. You'd come back again in a week."

"I hate the world!" cried Pam. "The world is so cruel."

"Poor little girl!" said her father wistfully, though he smiled at the same time.

"Pam," he said suddenly, "is there--is there anyone else?"

"There isn't," sobbed Pam, "and if there was, I wouldn't tell you."

"I only asked, Pam, because I thought I might be able to help you."

"No one can help me," cried Pam, "except by letting me alone."

"Very well, then," said her father patiently. "I'll let you alone. Only dry your eyes, and be comforted. I'm afraid you'll have to wash your face, Pam. You've been flooding my old tattered Euripides with your tears, and you've carried off half the dust from him. There, child, be comforted. I won't say another word about Glengall. He's just like myself, poor fellow, only anxious to take care of you. Sure, I know you're a child, and ought to have your freedom for years yet."

"I wish her mother were here now," said Mr. Graydon, as he closed the door behind his daughter.

He looked up at the pure and innocent face of his wife's portrait.

"I wish I had your wisdom, darling," he muttered. "It is so hard for a man to deal with little girls. And, ah! what they lost when you went to heaven!"

He sat before his study-fire deep in thought. Then he got up and paced the room to and fro, with his brows knitted and his hands behind his back.

"I'll do it," he said, half-aloud, at last. "I expect money difficulties would really stand in the way. I know Trevithick died poor, and Lady Jane had little of her own. The lad _must_ love her if she loves him. And it will smooth the way. At worst I shall only suffer a rebuff. I can bear it for the sake of Mary's children. And poor Molly too! Why need she spend her girlhood fretting for her lover when a little money would make things straight?"

He sat down and his face cleared. Again he looked up at the benignant eyes of the portrait.

"I am doing the best I can for them, Mary," he said, speaking aloud as if to a living person.

That evening he announced his intention of taking a run to London during the following week. Such an unusual thing in their quiet life provoked an outcry of surprise from his daughters.

"I may be an old fossil," he said, "but I'm not a limpet attached to a rock. Perhaps I'm tired of you all. Perhaps I'm starved for a walk down Piccadilly, or a visit to a good concert hall. Perhaps--perhaps."

But he gave them no explanation after all of his reason for going.

One event crowded upon another. The next morning, at breakfast, Mr. Graydon drew out a large, boldly addressed envelope from the post-bag.

"Now, who can this be from?" he said, putting it down and looking at it curiously. "'London, W.' Now, who'd be writing to me?"

"Better open it and see," said Sylvia, daintily chipping the top off her egg.

Mr. Graydon broke the seal and read it.

"It's from Lady Jane Trevithick," he said soberly; "a very civil letter. She's sorry she wasn't able to call again; and--and--she wants to know if one of you girls--she mentions Pam, I see--will go over and stay with her. It is very kind of Lady Jane."

He pushed the letter towards Pam, who took it unsteadily, and held it before her face as she read.

"I'd rather not go," said Pam, putting down the letter. "I can't go--I've no frocks."

"I should like you to go, Pam," said her father, wistfully. "The invitation is kindly meant, and Lady Jane moves in very good society, and is influential. Why should my girls be buried here? As for the frocks--I can spare ten pounds--I really can manage that. How much can be done with ten pounds, Mary?"

"A good deal. Oh! I hope Nancy Cullen is still at home! We'll go round after breakfast and see."

"Must I go?" said Pamela.

"I think you ought to go, Pam," said her father; "and we will travel together. I shall wait for you till you can be ready."

In his heart Mr. Graydon thought that the invitation was a sort of guarantee for his daughter's happiness. If Lady Jane had not known or suspected that her son was in love with Pamela, and had not been prepared to accept her, why should she have asked her on this visit?

"I used to think her a proud and cold girl in the old days," he said to himself; "but, of course, the girl of my dreams was so different! After all, I daresay Gerald made no such mistake as I used to fear."

"You will go then, Pam?" he said aloud. "The change will do you good; and you will enjoy yourself."

"Very well," said Pamela, listlessly; "I would rather be here, but if you wish I will go."

END OF CHAPTER NINE.

Knowledge Of The Future.

_A NEW YEAR ADDRESS._

By the Lord Bishop of Ripon.

"Do not interpretations belong to God?"--GENESIS xl. 8.

The words were spoken by one of those men who have moulded the history of the world. When he spoke them he was a prisoner, forgotten in his misfortune and blameless of offence. He was passing through a time of trial. Later he was destined to emerge into a position of much power and usefulness.

Joseph had shown from the first a character and qualities which distinguished him from his brethren. They were men with little or no thought beyond their daily work. In the open fields, watching their flocks and enjoying, after their day's task, physical repose, they found enough to satisfy them. He possessed a soul which went out beyond such a level of life; he reached out to something higher. Like the great French preacher, he could not leave his soul amid mere earthly things. In his brethren's eyes he was a dreamer. They were practical, and they had no sympathy with his dreams. He, meanwhile, was full of a wistful wonder, longing to find out the meaning of the strange visions which filled his soul. Life to him must be something more than eating, drinking, and tending sheep. No doubt a touch of egotism and personal ambition mingled with his dreams; this belonged to his youth; this, in time, would pass away. Life, with its stern and remorseless reality, would come to test him and his visions, proving what manner of man he was. Meanwhile, he was better with his dreams of the larger purpose and scope of life than his brethren, who were content with somewhat material gratification.

Time showed that he was no mere dreamer. The day came when the Prince of his people let him go free. The opportunity of large and noble service came to him; and he showed force, readiness of resource, sagacity, and practical vigour. His genius it was which mitigated misfortune and averted disaster. He foresaw and provided for the days of scarceness; he piloted Egypt through the bitter seven years of famine. His dreams were not the idle dreams of an empty mind; they were the visions of an energetic and finely tempered spirit. His gifts stood the strain of practical duty.

They had previously endured the harder test of adversity, neglect, and inaction. There are powers which lose their bloom under the pressure of prosaic duties; there are powers which wither under the shadow of misfortune and obscurity. The trial which comes from neglect is, perhaps, the severer, since it is hard for men to believe in themselves when there is seemingly none else to believe in them. But in the darkness of those neglected days the genius of Joseph remained bright. His insight, his power of vision, was not dimmed in the prison. He entered into the sorrows of other men; he showed a sympathy with their difficulties; he strove to read for them and with them the meaning of their lives.

And the sustaining source of his powers breaks out into view in the words of our text: "Do not interpretations belong to God?"

We can realise the pathos of the question and the tried, yet unbroken, faith which it reveals. Joseph is trying to read the meaning of the dreams of his fellow-prisoners. Life, and the experiences of life, he assures them, are not meaningless. He will not forego his faith in the significance of life. We may not be able to explain all; but there is, nevertheless, a meaning in all. It is as though he said, "I too have known my visions--beautiful visions of life's triumphs and life's joys. They faded with my growing years; and instead of the achievements which I saw in my dreams, there came false accusation, imprisonment, and neglect; but though the golden light of those visions is gone, they were not meaningless. I wait still for the unfolding of their significance. Still I rely upon Him who will make all things plain--for do not interpretations belong unto Him?"

As we listen to the words, we feel how aptly they fit into our own lives.

We, like Joseph, have had our visions. We dreamed of the bright things, the noble achievements, the splendid triumphs which life would bring; but as life unfolded her stern sequences of reality, the golden lines of our dreams vanished, the splendid tints of the morning melted into the light of common day.

Or perhaps our dreams have not gathered round ourselves, but round others--Love, which sets her objects in such golden lights, that she sees visions for them brighter than ambitions can dream for itself.

It may be only the little child, whose prattle half-pleases, half-worries you; but you are delighted to be so worried to win such pleasure. The dear innocence of its winsome ways, its simpleness and quaint airs of sagacity, are perpetual fascinations. In their lives we live; and for them we see visions and dream dreams.

"Thou wert a vision of delight To bless us given; Beauty embodied to our sight, A glimpse of heaven."

But the vision of delight fades. The promise which the vision gave seems to be denied its fulfilment.

It may be the young man, standing on the threshold of life, bearing himself with quietness of manner, but full of a happy gentleness and thoughtfulness towards others, and gifted with a sweet and rare conscientiousness in little things.

Or, again, it may be the man of maturer years, full of high and chivalrous impulses, ready like a knight of old to gird on his sword, and yearning to fill his life with worthy deeds, and yet blending, with all noble martial ardour, tender and generous thoughts for those who are dear, dearer than life, to his heart.

At this season--teeming with tender and sorrowful memories--visions such as these rush back upon our thoughts. The deep pathos and the sad tragedy of life speak to us out of such memories; for what golden dreams gathered round the heads of those who were so dear; and what sorrow is ours, when with the revolutions of the sun, the visions melt away; and all the hope, the promise, the expectation of achievement are exchanged for sorrow and solitude of heart. Then we too, like Joseph, find that our dreams can fade; we too encounter the gloomy days which succeed the bright morning of our hopes. We are imprisoned with sorrow; the iron enters into our soul; the bars of stern adversity shut out the cheerful sunlight of other days.

In such hours, when life, which seemed at one time so full of glorious meanings, droops into darkness and seems to grow cold and insignificant, our stay must be that of Joseph. Our trust must be in the living God. The vision seems to have lost its meaning. Life has become, to our sorrow-stricken hearts, flat, stale profitless, and meaningless; but it is not so. There is One who can fulfil our best dreams and give back to us their lost meanings. "Do not interpretations belong to God?"

Our trust must be in Him, and in none else. True, there is often to be met with in life the easy chatterer who will take upon himself to explain everything for us. All things are easy to the man who has never faced mental anguish or heart-sorrow. He will not hesitate to interpret our dreams for us, but his pretensions are vain. The dream and the meaning of the dream are for us alone. Men may soothe us in our grief. Their kindness and their attempted sympathy may be welcome to us, as the faded bunch of flowers from a child's hot hand may be sweet and acceptable; but to read the meaning of the vision, and to explain it aright, to disclose its fulfilment, showing to us that nothing is vain and no vision wholly meaningless--to do all this belongs to God; for do not interpretations belong to Him? He alone can sustain our trust in the trials of life. He alone can give us back the visions which so soon vanished from our sight.

The power to realise this constitutes the difference between the secular and the spiritual disposition. In the view of one poet, man is but a compound of dust and tears. Life is but sorrow mingled with earthliness; but better and higher than Swinburne's thought is Wordsworth's teaching. The older poet has the nobler view. He will not let life sink down to a mere secular meaning; it is more than grief and earth. There is that in us which transcends the earth and can triumph over tears:

"Oh! joy that in our embers Is something that doth live."

Into the world we came, but not as mere dust, to be mingled with tears. There was a breath of the Almighty which breathed upon us:

"With trailing clouds of glory did we come From God, who is our home!"

The divine spark is ours. It kindles a light and a fire. It calls forth visions past all imagining. Our young men, by a Divine Spirit's help, may see visions, and our old men dream dreams. And these visions are not mere idle fancies, creations of our folly or of our ambition. True, there are foolish visions and empty dreams; but all visions are not foolish, nor are all dreams empty. Far more empty is the soul that has no visions, to whom no bright and noble outlook upon life's possibilities can ever come. This is what Shakespeare recognises. Theseus is the man of action. He has dealt with the hard prosaic work-a-day world. To him the visions of the poet or dramatist are alike empty imaginings. The grandest and the most foolish are alike only beautiful bubbles which will vanish with all their rich colourings into empty air. The work of the poor players, who labour in their foolish fashion to give him pleasure, is no worse and no better than that of the most finished actors. To him all ideas or visions are unpractical and unreal. He is a man of action, loving deeds and despising dreams.

There is a sort of virtue in this; but how secular it all is, how low and insignificant life becomes, if no noble ideas and no heavenly visions environ it! How vain its achievements, if there be no promised land and no divine fire to give light in the night season! And so Shakespeare lets us see that, while idle dreams are vain enough, yet that for a man to be wholly without them, and to be destitute of ideas and visions, is to be poor indeed.

The true idea of life lifts us above the secular plane and places us where the heavenly vision is possible, and where the Shekinah light of God's presence is ever visible--though seen now as cloud, and now as flame.

But for the full meaning of all the visions and experiences of life, we must wait. The vision is from God; the experience is from God; from Him will come the explanation. "Do not interpretations belong to God?" The vision was given us yesterday--we must wait for its interpretation; the meaning comes to-morrow.

It is in the spirit of this principle that our Lord spoke, "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." So at another time He spoke: "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons." There is a sweet interpreting "afterwards" of life's bitter experience. "No chastening seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Our faith carries us forward to that interpreting hereafter, when once we realise that interpretations belong to God.

Herein we are not different from Christ our Master. He had the vision of the world conquered, but the vision faded; and in its place came Gethsemane and Calvary, the loneliness and the cross. And yet afterwards came the interpretation. The vision, though it faded for a time, did not die out unfulfilled. The kingdoms of the world are becoming the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ.

So it is the order of life that first should come the glory of the vision; then the fading of its colours, the grey day and the postponed realisation; and then afterwards the glorious interpretation. Not _now_ is the interpretation. Now is the sadness, now the sense of disappointment, now the temptation to think that all brightness is gone, and all hope lost; but hereafter the love which gave the vision and the love which took it away will make all plain--no whit of the beauty and the beatitude which the vision promised will be lost. The vision is for an appointed time. Till then, rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him. The gem hidden in the earth will yet sparkle in heaven's light. The meaning of all will be made plain, hereafter, in God's own light and in God's own way; for interpretations belong to God.

CIRCUMVENTED.

A Complete Story. By the Author of "Lady Jane's Companion."

"[Illustration: drop cap] I tell you he does not _dream_ of Dolly. How can you imagine anything so absurd?"

That was how the family tyrant addressed her mother, and poor Mrs. Rhodes was, as ever, annihilated. It was a vain thing to try and brave Georgiana. There she stood in the window, majestic, the eldest daughter, her straight hair stiffly ridged with hot irons, her face pale, and her lips determined, altogether handsome, but very hard. Behind her one had a glimpse of a forlorn little figure wandering in the grass. The sight of that lonely figure, and a dim idea of its unhappiness, made the poor lady pluck up spirit to murmur still--

"I--I--I thought that Freddy----"

"Impossible!" said Georgiana; her voice vibrated with a little more than disdain. "Why, what could he see in a stupid little goose like that? It would be cheaper to buy a sixpenny doll and set it up in his house; then at least he could always change it. But if he wants a wife----"

* * * * *

In the garden Dolly was walking rather sadly among the trees, and her white skirts brushed against the grass like a sigh. She was a little slip of a thing with Irish eyes, great and grey, always brimming with either a laugh or tears; and she had the dearest eager face in the world. It was a troubled face now, for she could not understand why life had been made bitter to her just lately. Perhaps it was because of some unwitting sin, perhaps because the family tyrant felt, like her, the approaching parting with their old playfellow. Georgiana had a peculiar way of showing when she was vexed.

The Rev. Frederick Cockburn had not always been six feet high and a parson. And for the greater part of their lives they had only been parted by a garden wall. Even when he was at college he was continually running down, and they had never made a plan without him; he belonged to the girls like a brother. Later he had had to admonish them as a curate, but he had been their old comrade still. Of course, he was lucky to get a living offered to him so young, and it was only right that he should accept it, but still it was a blow.

Freddy had run in so often to talk it over (the girls knew all about his house and his parish, down to the woman who played the harmonium and dragged the chants) that they had forgotten it was so far away. Now they had suddenly to remember.

Dolly was under the weeping ash, where she and Freddy had hidden when they were little. Georgiana had had the biggest bite of the apple, and then she had deserted and said, "I'll tell!" How she would miss him! Always he had been her champion, defending her when Georgiana was angry and pulled her hair. And although these days were past she wanted him more than ever. It had hurt her lately that he should have been monopolised by Georgiana and that she had been thrust back and made a third. He was a young housekeeper, and the eldest daughter could talk of carpets and curtains and butcher's bills. To Dolly life was a weary nightmare of Freddy serious in a chair, and Georgiana giving him good advice. Vainly she tried to keep her lip steady, leaning her head in among the leaves.

Half a mile away a black object was sitting on a fence whistling impatiently, inwardly furious with Georgiana.

"If she would only come out of the gate!" he said, hitting wildly at all the buttercups in his reach. "If she'd only give me a chance. But she's just pinned to Dolly, and I never can get a minute."

His whistle grew more lugubrious.

"And I'm off to-morrow!"

Never in the ancient days, when he used to stand in front of his younger playmate and defy Georgiana, had he felt her to be such a tyrant. He longed to stand up to her and shake his fist at her as of old. An instant he stood on the highest rail of the fence to reconnoitre beyond the trees, and then sat down again in despair.

"I know she thinks I'm not good enough for Dolly," he said; "we always were enemies, but she might let me ask her. It's Dolly's business."

Then he jumped down in a hurry that would have been undignified in any vicar less young and eager. Among the trees he had caught sight of the unaccompanied white flutter of Dolly's dress.

At the familiar whistle she started, reddening and glancing fearfully towards the house.

The tyrant's ears were sharp, but for once it appeared that she had not heard it, and Dolly rushed down the tree-hidden path to the gate. Her head was just under the green branches and they caught at her hair as she hurried, the prettiest picture in all the garden, with a quaint little forward stagger.

"Oh, Freddy!" she said.

He was leaning over the gate, which was fastened with a complicated arrangement of twisted string, meant to hold it together and keep it shut. There was something earnest and business-like in his manner; he hardly smiled at her greeting, and it hurt her. His face was so desperately solemn.

"Do you want Georgiana?" she said, bravely, "to--to talk about--furniture?"

He looked at her reproachfully across the gate.

"Dolly," he said, "how can you be so unkind? I've been haunting the place for hours, watching to catch you alone. I've no chance if I go to the house, and--and I can't _stand_ housekeeping and chairs and tables----"

At the emphatic climax they had to laugh. He was struggling mechanically with the string, and Dolly was making believe to help him.

"You used always to jump it," she said. Their hands touched as they fumbled at it, and she felt a new and disturbing thrill. "Hadn't you better do that, if you have not become too grand?"

"Don't," said Freddy. Ah, their fingers had been too near; he caught hers and held them tight. "They are all chaffing me about being a Vicar and having a house and all that. Asking if I've got anybody to put into it. But what's the good if you can't get the girl you want?"

"Oh!" said Dolly, looking startled and shrinking as far as the imprisoned hand would allow. He held it fast.

"Dolly," he said, "we've always been chums, you and I. Let me tell you, and then you must tell me honestly if you think--if I've got any chance----"

He was interrupted.

"Is that you, Freddy? What a blessing! I wanted to tell you what you must do about the study."

It was with a kind of terror that he saw Georgiana charging down upon them remorselessly through the trees. Dolly had wrung her hand away and vanished with a little sound like a gasp, and he, on the wrong side of the gate, was almost speechless with wrath and temper.

"If a man can't furnish his own study as he likes----" he stammered darkly, turning on his heel. Georgiana was like a fate.

"What was Freddy saying?"

A rather sad little face was visible among the leaves of the weeping ash.

"I--I don't know, Georgiana. He was just beginning--I think he has fallen in love again."

The elder girl glanced at her young sister with a gleam of suspicion, but Dolly had spoken in all good faith. And, indeed, in the dim past Freddy had once or twice been smitten and had confided his troubles to the kind ears of Dolly. They had been slight affairs and, although unhappy, always less tragic than laughable.

"He did not say who it was?"

"No," answered Dolly, "because you interrupted. I--I--I'm trying to guess."

Georgiana turned her back on the wistful grey Irish eyes.

"Can't you?" she said, and walked away, utterly hard-hearted.

* * * * *

That evening there was a formidable leave-taking. To Freddy Cockburn it was a nightmare.

As he sat in the drawing-room being talked to by Georgiana and Mrs. Rhodes (Dolly was very silent) he grew desperate. The last precious minutes were ticking loudly, now and then marked by a warning whirr, as the grandfather's clock reproached him.

He listened to them, but all the while he was wandering backwards hand in hand with Dolly--Dolly who now sat so distantly in the window.

With a start his mind came back impatiently to the present.

"Good-bye, my dear boy. We shall hear how you get on. Your mother will write and tell us----"

"You must let me know how you manage about the stairs," said Georgiana.

They accompanied him to the door, lingering affectionately to watch him go, and behind them the great brown clock was ticking the last, last minutes reproachfully. He shook hands and waited, desperately bold.

"Will you come to the gate with me, Dolly?"

There was a slight pause at that abrupt invitation. He saw Dolly involuntarily start forward and then hesitate, with a faint red wonderment in her cheek. He waited, gazing back eagerly at his fate in the balance.

"Yes, Dolly--come along!" said Georgiana.

II.

The Vicar of Little Easter was in his study. He had not been writing sermons, but pens were lying about the table, and there were other signs of an intellectual struggle.

"I can't do it," he said at last, crumpling up many fragments of blotted paper, each the unlucky beginning of a letter. Then he thrust his hands through his hair, giving it a despairing rumple.

"It's no good," he said. "I can't put it in a letter, and it does look a cowardly way of--asking. Like chalking up a thing and running round the corner. If I were a girl and a fellow wrote to me instead of coming and standing to his guns, I should call it--cheek."

"Dear Dolly----"

He tore the last attempt furiously across.

"She would think it was a joke and show it all round the family for them to laugh at it too," he lamented; "if Georgiana did not kidnap it first. I don't think she would stick at that, and I'm afraid she regularly hates me. Queer!"

He stared forlornly at the heap of papers, and then all at once an idea struck him and he jumped up.

"Hurrah!"

With sudden energy he flung out of his study and crossed the hall. His mother was sitting in her room--the only place that was quite in order--stitching rings on curtains. She was going to stay and put him to rights before returning home and leaving him in his glory.

"What is the matter, Freddy?" she said.

"I was thinking," said the Vicar soberly, "that you've a lot to do. Couldn't you ask one of the girls over while you are here to help?"

"If you think the place is ready for visitors," said Mrs. Cockburn, smiling. The girls were, of course, Freddy's old companions.

"Well, you might ask Dolly; I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

The old lady looked up keenly, but his manner was very careless.

"Why not Georgiana?" she inquired. "Eldest first."

"I don't think she could be spared just now," said the Vicar, hiding his alarm, "and--and I'd like the place to be tidy before she came."

So Mrs. Cockburn wrote and invited Dolly.

The answer came very quickly: Dolly could not leave home just now.

While his mother was reading out the many sufficient reasons, Freddy stared hopelessly across at the fatal letter. His face expressed utter dejection until about halfway through. At the last clause it lighted up with an inspiration. He leaned over the table.

"Then, mother, of course, you'll ask Georgiana?"

His mother glanced at him oddly.

"Do you want her?"

"Want her?" cried the Vicar. "Rather!"

There was no mistaking the eagerness in his voice. It betrayed itself in the very stammer with which he proceeded.

"I didn't know she would come, but if Dolly's to manage the school treat this year, and if Dolly's to take the club, they won't want Georgiana. Tell her we can't possibly get the house put to rights without her. Say whatever you think will bring her. Only make her come."

He got up and fetched his writing things from the study. Mrs. Cockburn had to write the invitation then and there, almost to his dictation.

"Tell her she _must_ come!" he cried impetuously, rushing away to look for a stamp, and then riding in with the letter himself to catch the early post. Mrs. Cockburn looked after him amused, but just a little bit disappointed.

"It's Georgiana then, after all," she said.

* * * * *

Three days later Georgiana was installed at Little Easter.

She arrived with rather too many clothes for a person who was to help in getting a house in order, but that did not prevent her from buckling to. Mrs. Cockburn, a kind old lady with a twinkle of humour to comfort her in her trials, was taken aback by her visitor's authoritative grasp at the reins; but Freddy, having suffered more nearly from her tyrannical ways, thought he had never known her so gracious. In fact, he repented himself of the hard things he had been thinking--of all but a certain determination.

"I don't believe she hates me really," he thought. "It was only that she didn't want me to marry Dolly."

He made that reflection whilst shaving with care the morning after her arrival. On coming down to breakfast he found her at her post. She had already whisked away half the litter that was hampering the breakfast-room, and was making the tea. As he came in she nodded.

"Good morning, Freddy. Your mother is breakfasting in her room. What a wilderness your house is at present! The first thing after breakfast will be to have a man in and put down the carpets."

"But they _are_ down," stammered the Vicar, who had laboured hard all the past week.

"All crooked," said Georgiana.

She poured out his tea and sat down opposite, with an air of calm superiority and possession (which the Vicar was too agitated to remark). Having long since made up her mind as to what she wanted, she was not unduly elated at the present turn of affairs. Freddy was always fickle, and it had taken very little pains to keep him apart from Dolly while that fancy lasted. It was not her part to consider Dolly--Dolly, years younger, and pretty, and always liked.

Something like exultation glittered in Georgiana's eyes. She had a glimpse of Dolly at home and smiled; her triumph was pitiless.

"Oh, by-the-bye," she said. "Your idea of furnishing the drawing-room is too ridiculous. It ought to be smart and shiny--a company room. You don't want old pictures and comfortable chairs!"

"Don't I?" said the Vicar with a half-smile, thinking whose whims he had tried to suit in the furnishing.

"No," said Georgiana. Her tone was lordly. "I'll tell you what I will do. You shall drive me into the town, and I will help you to choose what you really want."

"Do----," began the Vicar, and then stopped hastily, reddening. She looked at him witheringly, unaware that the word suppressed had been simply "Dolly."

"In the meantime----" she vouchsafed after a crushing pause. He looked up suddenly from his letters.

"I'm afraid you'll be dull, Georgiana," he said, rising. "It's awfully good of you to come, and perhaps you can find some amusement. You can do what you like, you know--so long as you don't touch my study, or trick it up like a heathen place in Japan. The fact is, I find I must leave you and mother for a day or two. Is that the dogcart? My train is at half-past ten."

Georgiana looked out of the window. There was the dogcart, and a beast of a brown horse pawing and snorting, to take him away to the country station. She turned round angrily, like a person who had been cheated.

"Why?" she asked.

Freddy had left the breakfast table, and was stacking his letters behind the clock. He answered her with a kind of chuckle--

"Important business."

Three minutes later, he was running down the stairs, got up for a journey. Mrs. Cockburn was just saying good-morning to the rather blank-looking visitor, and he kissed her hurriedly.

"I must go off at once," he said. "Georgiana will explain. And I say, mother"--in a tone of anxious hospitality--"don't let her go home, or anything, till I come back. I must catch the early train."

III.

Dolly was all alone.

There was no dragon guarding her, and she might wander unwatched about the garden, unvexed by the family tyrant's whim. However, she sat forlornly under the willow tree.

She was disappointed at not being allowed to go and visit Mrs. Cockburn, but, queerly enough, it had hurt her more to find her refusal met by that urgent invitation to Georgiana. It was a much warmer letter. Mrs. Cockburn had been told in inviting Georgiana to say whatever would bring her, and she had according written--"Freddy says she _must_ come," twice.

They were ringing in Dolly's ears, these impetuously written words; but she had not any right to be angry--and hardly any right to be sad. Only, if that message had been in _her_ letters, she would have defied them all.

The sun burnt down over all the garden, except under the sad green shade of the willow tree. Afterwards, it sank lower and lower behind the beeches until it was almost dusk. It was then that Dolly heard a familiar whistle.

She started up from the grass, and her wistful face was scarlet. It must be imagination.

Almost before she knew it she was hurrying up the path.

"Oh!" she gasped, finding herself at the gate, and ready to turn and fly as the strange whistler came in sight. Her heart beat too fast for her to hear any step. As if it could be him!

"Dolly!" he cried, in a voice of triumph.

"How did you get here?" she panted.

He vaulted the gate this time, and was immediately by her side.

"By train," he said coolly. "As soon as I'd got Georgiana safe I bolted."

Dolly paled slightly. Had he come to make an announcement?

"Will you come in to mother?" she said faintly; but Freddy barred the way.

"No," he said. "I won't."

She was almost frightened. He was so white and eager, and so emphatic.

"Dolly," he said, "I've got my chance at last. Georgiana thinks I'm not half good enough for you, and I'm sure it's true, but I don't care, she'd no right to fight as she did for her lofty plans. It's your business. And Dolly--Dolly--I love you so!"

* * * * *

"I like the house," said Georgiana.

She spoke in a slightly patronising tone, and poor Mrs. Cockburn sighed.

"It is rather big," she said. "But if Freddy should marry and settle down----"

"It will not be too big," declared Georgiana. "I have been drawing up my ideas about the rooms. And I have toiled all the morning in the study." Mrs. Cockburn looked alarmed. Even in a possible daughter-in-law this was rather drastic.

"He will not like you to touch his study."

"I know. He charged me to let it alone," said Georgiana calmly; "but it is no good giving in to a man's absurd notions, and he had crammed it with such extraordinary things. I have made it look like another place."

Again Freddy's mother sighed. It was the familiar tone of the family tyrant. She sighed for Freddy.

The sigh was interrupted by his return. Unexpectedly as he had disappeared yesterday, he came back. They heard him cross the hall with a long, quick, eager step, and then he burst in upon them, a boy again.

"Well, where have you been?" asked his mother, smiling. He was so tired and dusty, and so excited.

The Vicar looked at her like a school-boy, half-proud, half-shy.

"I've been to the old place," he said, "to ask Dolly if she would have me. And she says 'Yes.'"

R. RAMSAY.

THE END OF THE SONG

BY F. E. WEATHERLY.

I read to you one golden morn among the leaves of June, The flowers were sweet around our feet, the river sang its tune, I know not what the story was that stole upon your ears, I only saw your listening eyes were full of tender tears.

I sang to you when twilight fell, and all the world had flown, A song that rose from out my heart and was for you alone, I cannot tell what words I sang,--of gladness or of pain, I only knew I felt your heart give back the sweet refrain.

And when the night in silence rose, and all the song was o'er, The world was full of happiness I ne'er had known before, I know not what I told you then or what you said to me, I only knew your heart was mine for all the years to be.

SOME REMARKABLE SERVICES

_IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE COUNTRY._

Up and down the country there are several religious services held which are remarkable, not so much on account of the character of the service as in consequence of the strange places in which they take place. Of course, there are strange services--a few of which are detailed later--but, nevertheless, the majority obtain their notoriety by reason of their unusual place of assembly.

For instance, who has not heard of the famous open-air service at Kirk Braddan churchyard in the Isle of Man?--a service which on an August Bank Holiday Sunday has attracted a congregation of twelve thousand people. Indeed, so great has been the crush on occasions that it has been impossible for the collection plate to reach all those gathered within sound of the preacher's voice--a truly lamentable fact from the churchwardens' point of view.

If the weather is fine, these open-air services begin, as a rule, on Whit Sunday and continue to the end of September, or, virtually during the whole of the holiday season. They were instituted in a somewhat remarkable way by a former vicar, "Parson Drury," as he was familiarly called, when it was decided to build Kirk Braddan New Church in consequence of the old church falling out of repair and being altogether inadequate as far as size was concerned for the worshippers who attended. Accordingly, while the new church was in process of erection, Mr. Drury conceived the happy idea of using the spacious churchyard, and so popular was the innovation that it has been kept up in the summer ever since.

Now the services are conducted by the present vicar--the Rev. Canon Moore--and, fittingly enough, his pulpit is the immense limestone slab erected to the memory of the founder of the churchyard services, "Parson Drury." It was felt, when the good man died, that no better memorial could be raised than a stone which might be utilised as a pulpit in the "Nature's church" where he had delivered so many powerful sermons.

The hymn-papers are distributed as the people pour into the churchyard on Sunday morning. The hymns are most heartily sung by the congregation. They are well known, and the tunes are also such as all can join in, and the effect of eight or ten thousand voices singing the simple strains is wonderful.

During the summer the aggregate number of worshippers amounts to sixty or seventy thousand, from all parts of the United Kingdom, but principally Lancashire and Yorkshire. Many people join in the service which is going on at the same time in Braddan new church close at hand, but the great majority prefer the open air under the shadow of the old trees and the venerable church.

It is rather remarkable that the Isle of Man should also possess what is believed by many to be the largest open-air service in the world. There are some folk who think that the Sunday service in Hyde Park answers to this description, though it is certain, in point of size, there is not a great deal of difference between that and the one held on Douglas Head.

There is, in reality, apart from the size, nothing very special to say about this service on Douglas Head. It is an ordinary service of an exceedingly simple character. Every attempt, however, is made to get a first-rate preacher, and two or three bishops have taken the service. Archdeacon Sinclair, who is a frequent visitor to Manxland, has officiated on several occasions. As at Kirk Braddan, the congregational singing is the great feature of the service. The Bishop of Sodor and Man is naturally the most popular of all the prelates who figure prominently at these services.

After these monster services, it is a delightful change to come to the "Egg Service," which was instituted in 1894 by the Rev. S. Alfred Johnston of St. John's, Streatham. It was thought that one of the most beautiful ways of observing Hospital Sunday would be to send a consignment of eggs to some of the patients in the great London hospitals, and accordingly the congregation were requested to make their offerings of eggs on the day when the various churches unite in rendering financial aid to the institutions in question.

The "Egg Service," like most other things, had a small beginning, for only 220 eggs were contributed the first year. In 1895 the number of eggs rose to 446, while the year following no less than 1,618 eggs were given. It was felt, however, that in Jubilee year a special effort ought to be made in view of the general assistance then being afforded to the hospitals by the scheme of the Prince of Wales, and so a "Jubilee" offering was arranged.

The service succeeded beyond all anticipations. Over five thousand eggs were to be seen in St. John's Church on Hospital Sunday, and the arrival of the various members of the congregation, carrying baskets of new-laid eggs, excited a great deal of local interest. By some means Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York heard of the service that year, and sent a sovereign to be spent on eggs. For this sum two hundred were obtained, the difficulties of transit alone preventing the Duchess from personally sending the eggs. It is only right to add that the giving of the delicacies referred to in no way interferes with the financial offertory at the service, which is forwarded to the Hospital Sunday Fund.

There is some prospect of these "Egg Services" becoming an institution in other parts. This year the Essex town of Maldon has followed the good example set at Streatham. Carey Church, Reading, also made an initial effort of the same kind this year.

These "Egg Services," inasmuch as they help the needy, call to mind the "Doll Service" that is held at St. Mary-at-Hill, Eastcheap, the church of the Rev. W. Carlile, the founder of the Church Army. On the Sunday before Christmas the congregation are requested to bring dolls, which are laid on a table near the altar. The gentlemen as well as the ladies are expected to provide a doll in some way or other, and consequently a goodly number of these ever-popular playthings are dispensed on Christmas Eve to the poorest of children in the East End of London. Mr. Carlile's service is now a fixed institution.

The followers of John Wesley are numerically very strong in Cornwall, and it is not surprising therefore that the strangest service held by that denomination takes place in that part of the country. A service in an old quarry is a decided novelty, and the fame of the "Gwennap Pit" service is justly popular with its lusty-voiced congregation of Cornishmen. Every Whit Monday the gathering takes place, so the Methodists within a radius of twenty miles are able to make it a day of pleasure as well as profit. The pit is situated not far from the quaint little town of Redruth.

The quarry forms a natural amphitheatre. Circular in form, and possessing row after row of steps, it is able to seat a good congregation, most of the members of which arrive by brakes. In the centre a sort of rostrum is erected for the various speakers, for addresses (and not a sermon) are the order of the day.

In days gone by John Wesley preached in this disused quarry to crowded congregations. Cornish folk always welcomed heartily the founder of Methodism, and they hold this monster service in memory of the time when Wesley frequently used the pit, first of all because it was the only place big enough, and secondly on account of the fact that it was the only one he was allowed to use. As a rule, great preachers are not invited, as the congregation prefer to hear the leading "local preachers." It is the boast of many a man that he first attended with his grandfather, who had already spent a good many Whit Mondays at Gwennap Pit.

The Oxford "May Morning" service is well known throughout the country, chiefly because it is the oldest of such gatherings, and--what is more--by far the best attended. It is held, as everybody knows, upon St. Mary Magdalen's tower at five o'clock in the morning, and is attended by the President and Fellows of the college as well as the members of the choir. A few strangers, however, are admitted, and, all told, the number of people on the tower amounts to about two hundred. The crowd in the street below, however, runs into thousands, instead of hundreds, as the illustration of the people on the bridge which crosses the River Cherwell fully bears out.

No matter what event takes place, the service is held on May Day. The crowd begins to assemble soon after four o'clock in the morning, when the bells begin to ring, warning the citizens that the time of service is approaching. At half-past four the choir begins to assemble, and one by one the members begin to make their way to the top of the tower, which very soon presents an animated appearance on account of the limited space to be obtained. When at last the hour of five arrives, and the clocks of the city begin to denote the time of day, the choir bursts forth into song ere the clocks have ceased striking.

The holding of the service confers upon the college the right of presentation to the living of Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, upon the income of which there is said to be an annual charge of ten pounds for the music on the top of the college tower. Similar services were at one time held at St. Paul's Cathedral, and at Abingdon, but after a time the custom died out. There is, however, no likelihood of that happening at Oxford, the service now having too great a hold upon the favour of the public.

Every July a most remarkable service is held at Folkestone. Like the majority of seaside resorts, Folkestone owns a big fishing industry, and it was felt that a service of thanksgiving for the harvest of the sea was just as desirable as the ordinary harvest festival. So every year the clergy and choir of the parish church march through the streets, singing hymns, and when the harbour is reached the fisher-folk join in the service of praise to God for the blessings vouchsafed in the past, and pray to be kept safe from harm in following their dangerous avocation, and also for "heavy catches" in the year to come.

Kirk Braddan churchyard service is not the only one of its kind in the country, though it is the biggest. For years a similar service has been held in the spacious churchyard of St. Tudno, situated on the Great Orme's Head at Llandudno.

The services are held both in the morning and evening, and although the Llandudno churches have special preachers during the season, none of them is so well attended as St. Tudno's. The service is simple and hearty, the singing is good--for Welsh people can sing--and the voices of the visitors blend harmoniously with the rich native element. All the tunes are well known, and the same can also be said of the hymns, which are printed on hymn-sheets to avoid the necessity of bringing books.

The congregation is a varied one. Men are there dressed in cycling costume, while caps and straw hats, with other holiday attire, are adopted by the great majority. The ladies are allowed to put up their sunshades, if they wish, and everybody is permitted to do as he or she desires. The graves form the seats. Some of the more adventurous perch themselves on the headstones, while others lay full length on the grass mounds, many of which are unadorned with names of any kind. The rector, the Rev. J. Morgan, has a loyal band of workers, who distribute the hymn-sheets, and also hand out cushions to the many ladies present. The congregation, which often numbers a couple of thousand, forms the choir.

One of the most pleasing parts of the service is the taking up of the offertory. This is chiefly done by boys, many of them being the children of visitors, and the youngsters are only too delighted to take part in this novel duty.

When the congregation disperses comes the prettiest scene of all, as the people wend their way down the hill--a long, unbroken line, which seems to reach as far as the eye can distinguish.

How many people are there, aware of the fact that the railway town of Derby has a series of services at the breakfast hour for the men engaged in the engineering works? These are attended by two thousand men every morning, and owe their origin entirely to the idea of one man of very humble circumstances in life. Yet this quiet, unassuming man initiated one of the grandest services in the country, held not occasionally but upon every working day in the year.

Thirty years ago very few men were employed at the works of the Midland Railway, compared with the number who work there to-day. Many of the men, whose homes were too far distant to admit of their returning for breakfast, were obliged to bring this meal with them. George Wilkins, the founder of these mess-room services, was in charge of an engine-room, and in the winter, as it was a nice warm spot, some of the men asked Wilkins if they might have their meal by his fire. The engineer gladly consented, and, being a Christian man, he took the opportunity of reading the Bible to them.

This fact got noised abroad, and other men joined in. The reading was first of all supplemented by prayer and then by singing. The fame of the little service continued to grow, until at last Wilkins's engine-room was not nearly big enough, and the place of service had to be moved to an open shed outside. For some time this shed answered the purpose; but as the railway works grew, and more men were employed, the attendance at the service increased, until at last it was absolutely necessary to erect rooms especially for the service.

First of all, grace is sung, and then the men set to work to eat their breakfast. Plates rattle and knives and forks jingle as the speaker for the day reads the Bible and gives a forcible address. But every word is heard, for the men are very attentive while eating their food. This is not surprising, for the services are taken by well-known laymen and clerics, and if a notable preacher is in the neighbourhood or about to pass through Derby, he is requested to break his journey and say a few words to the railway men at their breakfast. Many gladly do this if their engagements permit.

George Wilkins, the founder of these services, is dead, but a visit to Derby cemetery reveals the fact that his work has not been forgotten by those who now enjoy the fruits of his labour. Over his grave a fitting memorial has been placed, and upon it is inscribed the following: "In loving memory of George Wilkins, who died November 19th, 1872, aged fifty-three years. He was a faithful servant of the Midland Railway Company, and under God's guidance the beginner of a work for Christ which lives on still, though he is gone. Out of love for his character and gratitude for his work, his friends and fellow-workmen have erected this stone. His constant song was 'God is Love.'"

One does not hear very much nowadays of the open-air baptismal services which fifty years ago were so popular with the Baptist churches in the country districts. In Cambridgeshire, however, they still take place in many of the villages, and our illustration shows the service at Bottisham Sluice, which is situated near Waterbeach, the scene of the late Mr. Spurgeon's earliest labours. The minister stands in the river, and the candidate for church membership wades in to him and is immersed in the waters. A house near by is utilised for dressing purposes.

GEORGE WINSOR.

Coals of Fire

A Complete Story. By J. F. Rowbotham, Author of "Solomon Built Him an House," Etc.

It was twenty years since I left Hambleton as the curate, and on the identical day I returned as vicar. I sat meditating in the little village inn, while a gig was being harnessed to draw me to the vicarage. I wondered how the place would look. I wondered whom I should see and recognise. Twenty years produce innumerable changes. Those whom I had known as boys would have grown to men, and men and women would have become silver-haired and wrinkled, and perhaps past the power of recognition, until a familiar voice in dubious accents should say, "I am such a one. Do you not know me?" To such a query I felt I should have to reply, "I knew you twenty years ago, and if you assure me you are the very same person, I know you now. But the identification must come from yourself."

"The gig's ready, sir," cried the man at the hotel parlour door, and in obedience to this admonition I shut up my tablets and took my seat in the vehicle. Off went the horse. I whizzed past all the familiar places _en route_, and at last was landed safe and sound at the vicarage, but somewhat dazed and bewildered by the sudden panorama of a vanished past presented to me during the ride.

My experiences of the next few days proved to be exactly as I predicted. I saw innumerable people who turned out to be old acquaintances, though it was on the strength of their telling that I found them to be so. I should never have known them again in a crowd, nor would they, I imagine, despite their assertions, have known me. I saw old Haynes once again, Smart the gardener, England the bell-ringer who was so fond of frequenting "The Rose," Higgs, Nutcher, and many more.

Localities had not altered so much as people. I noticed that the old apple-tree in the vicarage garden bent down with the identical curve in its trunk, and seemed to have the exact number of apples upon it which it had when I left it. The vicarage had much altered, though, and so had its surroundings--several new cottages being built which quite shut out the pretty prospect from the study window which once was.

I found the circumstances of many of the inhabitants, like the "extension" of the vicarage, to have altered likewise. I found several people poor and reduced in circumstances whom I left fairly well-to-do. I met some people now in comparative opulence whom I remembered so poor that they were glad of doles from the curate. All this is a striking instance of a very great truth in English life, which is that circumstances, as generations pass, are on a sliding scale. If you look for the descendants of the nobility of some centuries ago, you will find them in the humblest cottagers of to-day. And if you search for the descendants of the former cottagers of our land, you will find them in its present nobility. Life fluctuates so in great cycles of time; and in the little cycle during which I had been absent from Hambleton, thus had existence fluctuated and changed.

Two visits in particular I intended to pay, namely, to the squire, and to Farmer Brownlow; and before many days elapsed I contrived to pay them. I saw the squire and the farmer, and I must confess I was very much struck by the change that had come over them both, but particularly Mr. Brownlow, whom I remember tall, erect, and jovial. I concluded there must have been more dissensions in his family since I last knew them, and that trouble was impending. I made such domestic inquiries as I could without receiving much satisfaction; but I took care to observe the greatest reticence about his son Arthur.

I must mention, in explanation of my last sentence, that when I was curate here Arthur Brownlow was a boy of about twelve or fourteen, and one of the brightest and most ingenuous lads it has ever been my lot to know. He was also blessed with a beautiful voice, and sang in the choir of the church all the solos in the anthems. Shall I ever forget the melodious tones that floated from that boy's lips? Neither I nor any who heard him can cease to remember them.

The popularity which the boy gained, the favour which he received from everybody and anybody, was so marked and so universal that it ultimately excited the envy and hostility of his elder brothers, who were young men of twenty and over, and who were, moreover, prompted to their animosity by the suspicion that their father intended to bequeath the farm (which was his freehold) and all his money to his favourite son, and leave them unprovided for.

Arthur's mother was Mr. Brownlow's second wife, who had been very dear to him, but had only lived about three years, and then had passed away, leaving as a legacy to her husband the little baby boy scarce two years old. The child became the farmer's idol, and was more and more worshipped as he grew to boyhood.

The elder sons being in the main clownish, stupid fellows, it was a common speech, half in joke, half in earnest, with the farmer:--

"You lads are strong of build and dull of wit. Why don't you exert your strength in other spheres than this, and leave the farm to little Arthur when he grows up? You, Hugh, might, for instance, go to America. William, you might take a piece of land of your own--you are old enough to manage it and strong enough to work it. You, Robert, should apply for the post of farm bailiff with Mr. Weatherstone or somewhere else; and you, Thomas, should go in for sheep farming in the colonies. There is your life mapped out for you all. It will be many years before I am laid on the shelf; and you are all getting too old to be anything but drags on me; while by the time I am about settling down in my chimney corner, to take my ease henceforth, Arthur will be just of an age to take the farm off my hands and commence the management of it. This will, moreover, keep the land in one piece, instead of chopping it up into five."

These words, I say, were often used by Mr. Brownlow in jest to his sons, who were a lazy lot, and who ought, moreover, to have been on their own hands by now. He possibly meant little more than jest, for he was not the sort of man to cut any of his family adrift at that time; but his sons chose to take the remarks in thorough earnest, and they one and all wreaked their bitterest spite on poor Arthur in consequence, till his life became almost intolerable to him.

He would often come to me in those days, and say:

"Mr. Calthorpe, I don't think I can stand it any longer, sir--at least, without telling father; and then, if I do that, I don't know what might be the consequences. He would certainly be so angry that he would send all my brothers away, which I should never wish to be done. Or, if he did not, they would persecute me still worse than they are doing. So between the two things I don't know what to do."

I strove as hard as I could to exhort the boy to patience, giving him what comfort I could, and I even offered to intercede between him and his brothers; but this proposal he would not listen to, and finally he decided that he would bear all in silence and would not tell his father. So that matters were at a deadlock, and remained so, until a new development began in the persecution of Arthur Brownlow by his brothers--which consisted in the deliberate attempt on their part to poison his father's mind against him by all sorts of stories and fabrications, and so get rid of him.

The diabolical attempt was made with greater and more elaborate cunning than I should have imagined such stupid young men as the Brownlows to be capable of. They not only carried on the plot themselves but got their neighbours--the young Spencers of Bray--to assist them, and from all sides Farmer Brownlow kept continually hearing of the precocious vices and bad manners of his darling son, which were at first discredited by him, but afterwards believed, and then greedily sought after.

"It is all this incense that comes to the boy along of his singing that is spoiling him," he said to me one day. "And you, Mr. Calthorpe, are partly to blame for encouraging it. What good can all that howling and caterwauling do the lad? Not a bit, that I can see, except that it takes him into company from which he would be better away. It stuffs the boy's head with nonsense, sir, and it will never bring him to any good."

It was in vain that I pointed out that there was practically no foundation for any of these charges against his son, who was one of the model boys of the parish. The farmer regarded me as a biased witness, and kept his own opinion of the matter, which was more and more inimical to poor Arthur every day. Do what I could in the way of mediation, it was all no good. The ball once set rolling, continued to roll in the same direction, until one day I heard, to my unspeakable concern, that Arthur Brownlow had broken into his father's bureau and extracted five pounds from it, that the money had been found in his possession, and that he was now in the custody of the police.

I remember what a sensation the trial made at the assizes in the neighbouring town of C----. I appeared as a witness in the boy's behalf, and spoke up for him right gallantly; but all intercession and testimony were of no avail--the evidence was held to be quite conclusive. Although the father did not appear against him, the brothers did, and their testimony was sufficient to convict the boy, who was found guilty and sent to a reformatory for two years.

I saw him before he went, and he said to me--

"Tell father, sir, that I am unjustly condemned. Tell him it was a plot of my brothers, and that I would scorn to do such an action. But tell him, moreover, that after this disgrace I could never bear to show my face in the village again, and when I come out of this place I shall go beyond the seas or somewhere, but certainly shall never come to Hambleton, nor shall he be troubled by seeing my face again."

I wondered what effect this message would have on the old farmer, but to my surprise he received it with the greatest nonchalance.

"Aye, aye, sir," he said in reply, as with black face and lowering brow he sat in his parlour with his sons around him. "The lad has brought disgrace on the family. I disown him, sir. I knew what all this singing and caterwauling would lead to: I said so from the first, and my words have come true. He need never seek to see my face again until he has redeemed his character. Then I'll see him, but not till then. Meantime, as you are going to the reformatory occasionally to visit him, tell the lad--for, although a thief, he is a son of mine--that I will provide him with what money is necessary, when he leaves that home of thieves and vagabonds, to set up in something or to go away to some colony, or anything he likes; and then, as I say, when he has redeemed his character, he can come and see me--but not till then. Tell him he shall have the money, sir, when he wants it; but tell him that till he has redeemed his character I disown him."

The money, however, was never applied for by Arthur Brownlow. I saw him several times at the reformatory, and, indeed, tried to get him released on the ground of insufficient evidence, but in vain. When the end of his time came, he obtained some employment--I know not how--went to London, and then I lost sight of him; for a month or two afterwards I left my curacy in Wiltshire and took another in Northumberland.

I saw the Brownlows now for the first time since that event of twenty years ago. I was informed incidentally that they had never heard anything more of Arthur. "I suppose," said one of them, "he's gone to the bad long ago."

The old man in the chimney corner now white-haired and bowed down with age, suffered a wistful look to pass over his face occasionally, but that was all. No more was said, and no more did I say. In a short time I had forgotten the story of twenty years ago as completely as they had and as the village had; but there was one remark alone of that afternoon's conversation which dwelt in my mind: "I suppose he's gone to the bad."

"Gone to the bad!" Why, there was one thing plain. _All the Brownlows seemed to have gone to the bad_--not Arthur alone--for a more besotted, lazy-looking set of men it had never been my lot to see.

It is the experience of every clergyman, when he comes to a new parish, that he can soon find by a sort of intuition where the troublesome spot in that parish is likely to be; and I very soon knew by instinct that the troublesome people in my parish would be the Brownlows--as was amply proved immediately after my arrival. Scarcely a day passed but one or other of them was at the vicarage. Now it was Robert--now it was Hugh--now it was Thomas. One came requesting me to go to see their father, who was "in dreadful low spirits." Another told me they had a horse for sale, and asked me if I would like to buy it. The third, Thomas Brownlow, wanted to borrow a little money of me; and this was the first actual hint I got of the hazardous state of their affairs.

"No, Thomas," I said, "I cannot lend you that money; for, in the first place, it is your father, not you, who ought to have asked for it, if the object is to make repairs on your farm; and, in the second place, I think I am considerably poorer than you. A well-to-do farmer has considerably more cash than a poor parson, and so for the second reason I must absolutely decline."

But this rebuff produced no diminution in the importunity of the Brownlows, which at last culminated in the appearance of the eldest brother and the father one day at the vicarage, when they told me, with much display of emotion, that the farm was heavily mortgaged, and, indeed, had been so for some time, and that the mortgagee, to whom no payments had been made for some time past, threatened to foreclose. Could I therefore either lend them the money, or get it from a friend, or ask the squire to oblige them, or, in fact, help them in any way whatever?

At the moment I could think of no way in which I might be of service to them in the manner indicated; but as, despite their importunity, I was sincerely sorry for them, I said I would turn the matter over in my mind, make inquiries, and let them know by the morrow if I could do aught for them.

The same afternoon my old college friend, Vincent Harrowby, who was vicar of a neighbouring parish, drove over to see me, and dine with me. It was the first time we had met for twenty years or more, and it was to celebrate our meeting that I had given orders to my housekeeper to prepare a somewhat elaborate repast in his honour and for our mutual delectation. As we sat over dessert, Harrowby talked of a score of subjects to which I paid a vague and partial attention; but at last, as his "inextinguishable tongue," as we used to call it at college, kept up its eternal stream of talk, I found myself listening with rapt attention to what he was saying, which sounded incredible to my ears.

"You remember that young choir boy of yours, Arthur Brownlow?" Harrowby was remarking. "Well, I saw him some years ago--about ten years, I think--and he had developed then into a man of means. He had plenty of money, I was told, and was in every respect a fine fellow. I often wondered what it was in his private history which you used to allude to in such a guarded manner----"

But before my friend had been able to finish his sentence I, to his great surprise, brought down my fist upon the table with the remark--

"The very man that is wanted! Where does he live, Harrowby, and what is his address?"

"As to that," replied my friend, with a look of amused surprise, "I cannot tell you to a street now. But I suppose he will be somewhere in the neighbourhood where I knew him, and that was in such and such a street, Bloomsbury" (naming it), "where he was practising as a solicitor. Doubtless he may have changed his residence, but Bedford Row ought to know him."

I then briefly explained to my friend the circumstances which would make Arthur Brownlow's appearance at the present juncture a godsend for the distressed family; for I must add that one or two of the sons were married and had families, on which innocents, even more than on the men, the blow would fall.

"We must apply to him at all costs for the money," I remarked. "He will never refuse to help his father, even if his brothers were traitors. One of them must go to London to-morrow and search out Arthur and obtain the funds needed."

And so it was agreed, and the agreement was acted on; but our best efforts, the personal search of Thomas Brownlow, the most diligent inquiries of myself and my friend Harrowby, during the short time at our disposal, were unable to discover any trace of the missing Arthur, who was gone, like the wind, without a vestige to mark his flight. No one seemed to know or remember much about him. Those who affected to, said some one thing, some another, and in the Law List his name was not to be found.

The condition of the Brownlows had meanwhile become worse. The little ready money which they had, had been expended in the journey to London and the prosecution of the inquiries after Arthur. They looked hungry and dejected, and I was informed that the mortgagee, incensed at their inattention to his applications for money, had definitely decided to put someone in possession of the farm by the last day of May.

I recommended the brothers to make a last appeal personally before the end of May arrived, and see if by their united rhetoric they could soften the inflexible heart of Mr. Suamarez. This with rustic reluctance they ultimately consented to do.

The four brothers, Hugh, William, Robert, and Thomas, proceeded to Ashcroft. I believed they walked there, as their last horse had been sold some months ago, and they had not a sixpence left to pay railway fare. They arrived at the mansion of the inexorable mortgagee, and were summarily refused admission by the servant, as I had been. But with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause the four men hung about the place hour after hour, with the intention of securing a parley with Mr. Saumarez, with whom they were quite unacquainted, having hitherto conducted their negotiations through his agent.

Towards the evening, as they prowled about the coppice surrounding the house, they saw the owner of the manor, accompanied by his wife and their young children, come on to the lawn, and no sooner was the opportunity presented than the four men burst through the bushes and approached him.

Mrs. Saumarez turned deadly pale, and threw her arms round her children at the sight of these four ill-clad and travel-stained loafers, for so they looked, so suddenly appearing on the lawn of the house, while Mr. Saumarez stood in front of his wife and children and angrily demanded what they wanted.

"It is just this, sir," said Hugh, rubbing his mouth with his sleeve preparatory to making a speech, "we are the Brownlows, sir, and we have travelled fifty miles to see you, sir. You're going to evict us from our little farm that we have had in our family for years and years without number. Give us some delay, sir--forgo your intention for this year--till after the harvest, at least, until we see what sort of crops we may have, and out of the profit of them we can pay you your demands."

"These speeches are all idle," responded Mr. Saumarez testily. "I made up my mind long ago. I know you to be good-for-nothing men, through whose laziness your old father's farm has got into its present condition. You deserve no pity, and you deserve no delay. For the present state of affairs you have only yourselves to blame. You must take the consequences of your conduct."

"Oh, sir." began Hugh, who was the spokesman of the rest, "think of our circumstances. We have children, as you have; they will all be thrown on the world----"

"Into this," replied Mr. Saumarez, "I cannot go. When the mortgage came into my hands--which it did along with some adjoining property about a year ago, on my return from abroad--I made a particular point of asking my agent what sort of men conducted the farm. And hearing from him that they were four brothers, all men of questionable character, named Brownlow, who owed their present degradation to their own laziness and folly, I said I wished to hear no more, and that the farm, which stood conveniently adjacent to a manor which is also mine, must be appropriated with no more delay than the usual legal routine permitted of. That is what I said to my agent. I presume--in fact, I know--he has acted on my orders. I have nothing more to say about it, so I wish you a good evening."

"We have children--two of us are married men," exclaimed Hugh, appealing to Mrs. Saumarez.

"We have had sickness in the family for months past," added Robert.

"It is not our fault--the harvests have been bad year after year."

But they were speaking to deaf ears. Mr. Saumarez, motioning to his wife and children, was turning away to enter the house.

"I don't know," said Thomas, who had not hitherto spoken, "what will become of our old father----"

"What?" inquired Mr. Saumarez sharply, turning round, "Is your old father still alive?"

"Yes, he is," they all replied at once, staring at him with most unfeigned surprise.

"I understood from my agent," replied Mr. Saumarez, his voice getting thick as he spoke, "that there were only you four brothers--men who deserved--men whom I knew to be----Look here, you Brownlows. You tell me your old father is still living. Is he well? Is he in fair health? Does his memory remain good? And how--how do you treat him in his old age?"

"How do we treat him, sir?" inquired Hugh Brownlow and the rest, speaking slowly and gazing at Mr. Saumarez as if they had seen a ghost. "Why, as to that----"

"As to that," I said, appearing from the drawing-room with old Mr. Brownlow on my arm--for in deference to his expressed wish, after the departure of his sons, I had travelled with him by train to Ashcroft in order that he too might plead, and we had just arrived--"as to that, Mr. Saumarez, the father can best answer for himself. See if he is not still an honoured and reverend sire. Look at him yourself, sir; for before heaven I believe you are Arthur Brownlow."

"Yes," exclaimed the old man on my arm, his eyes streaming with tears, "it is my son, my own son Arthur, at last! My former ruin is nothing to my present joy, for I see the boy whom I have wronged, whose reproaching image has been present with me for years--I see him at last before me; I hold him in my arms; I ask pardon of him, profoundest pardon, for all the injustice I have done him; and I rejoice to think that at last my lifelong sorrow is at an end."

Arthur was weeping on his father's neck. The brothers stood around petrified with astonishment.

"It is true," said Arthur Brownlow in a voice choked with emotion; "it is true that, had my brothers been the only parties concerned, I might perhaps--nay, I am sure I should--without compunction have retaliated as the world retaliates. But I never knew--I never suspected--that you, my father, were among them. I have wept for you as dead, for such tidings reached me some time ago. I have mourned for the unjust opinion you held of me, mourned since my boyhood, and even as a man I mourned. But now I hold you in my arms--alive, God be thanked! and forgiving, Christ be praised! And greater happiness can I not know, save if one of my own children should bring me the same experience, and then my felicity might be as great."

The mystery of the lost identity of Arthur Brownlow was easily explained. He had prospered in the world as Arthur Brownlow, when my friend Harrowby knew him; but shortly after that date he had married a Miss Saumarez, who held large estates in Jamaica, and whose name he was compelled to take for the sake of securing the entail of her property to the children. He had lived in Jamaica for nearly ten years, and had recently come back, to find some property near Hambleton added to his possessions, and with it the mortgage over Brownlow's farm. His agent only knew that Brownlow's farm was managed by the young Brownlows, since the old father had long retired from active participation in it; and with this account of the place Arthur Brownlow was naturally satisfied, since he believed his father had died some years ago. He intended to punish his brothers for their treachery and cruelty, but it is questionable whether his intention would ever have gone beyond reading them a severe, salutary lesson and then reinstating them in their freehold. At any rate, as circumstances happened, it had no chance of doing so, for the sight of his father so overwhelmed poor Arthur with joy, that all was forgotten, all was forgiven, in that happy moment; and now in the whole of my parish there is not a happier or better conducted place than Brownlow's farm.

AN INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEACE.

DEAR READERS OF THE QUIVER,

The recent Rescript of the Czar of Russia, inviting the Great Powers to entertain the idea of a general disarmament, was naturally received with joyful acclaim by the whole Religious World. There were some, of course, who shook their heads dubiously when they heard of it. "Can it be true," they said, "that the Autocrat of All the Russias is on the side of peace?" And then they have proceeded to hint at ulterior motives for the announcement. But the great majority of Christian people have preferred to take his Imperial Majesty at his word, and to accept, with deep thankfulness to Almighty God, the Supreme Disposer of all men and all things, this gracious sign of a long-hoped-for age of universal peace and good-will, foretold by the prophets and proclaimed by the herald angels at Bethlehem.

But the Great White Czar himself does not need to be reminded that Governments are powerless unless they are supported by the peoples whom they represent in the International Councils thus convened. And this support, when voiced in a definite form, is a mighty force which will carry everything before it. Here, then, and now, under the inspiration of this blessed Christmas season, is given us an opportunity of responding to the call for Peace, which, if neglected, may not be repeated for many a generation yet to come.

We have been awaiting the inauguration of a collective expression of Christian approval and support of the Peace Rescript, not only from our own, but from all the Christian nations; but up to the present no such international movement appears to have been organised. We therefore invite our readers all over the world to join in a hearty and thankful endorsement of the sentiment of the Czar's Manifesto, and thus set in motion a powerful engine for good. We suggest also that they should all enlist their adult friends, without restriction of sex or creed, in the same Christlike cause, by obtaining their signatures to the declaration to be found on the other side of this leaflet.

When the sheet has been filled up With all the signatures obtainable, it should be returned without delay to the Editor of THE QUIVER, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C. Further sheets will be supplied, post free, on application, or any number of plain sheets may be added by the collector as required.

Yours, In the service of the Prince of Peace, The Editor of the Quiver

An Honorarium of TEN POUNDS will be awarded to the Sender of the First Thousand Signatures, under regulations which will appear in our next issue.

THE QUIVER INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEACE.

(_No person under sixteen years of age should be asked to sign._)

We, the undersigned, desire to express our earnest sympathy with the peace proposals contained in the recent Rescript of his Imperial Majesty the Czar of Russia, and hereby authorise the attachment of our names to any International Memorial having for its object the promotion of Universal Peace upon a Christian basis.

NAMES. ADDRESSES.

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

Our Roll of Heroic Deeds

TWO MANCHESTER HEROES.

One of the many notable acts of bravery which are constantly being performed by the members of fire brigades all over the kingdom is here depicted. The lower floors of a house situated in Portland Street, Manchester, were in flames, and in an upper window a man suddenly appeared and cried for help. A ladder was immediately procured, but, to the dismay of the onlookers, it was too short by several feet, and seemed absolutely useless. However, Fireman Lawrence swarmed up the ladder, closely followed by Clayton, and when they reached the top, the latter so placed his arms that Lawrence could stand upon them and thus reach the narrow gutter above, on to which he clambered. The breathless crowd beneath them watched Lawrence balance himself on the ledge, and, with great difficulty and at terrible peril to his life, pass the imprisoned man to his companion. When Lawrence, by the help of Clayton, gained the ladder in safety again, thundering roars on roars of applause worthily greeted the plucky men in recognition of their magnificent bravery.

AS CHAPLAIN TO MR. SPEAKER

_Some Reminiscences of Parliament._

_PART II._

I once had the honour of meeting Mr. Gladstone at a very small dinner-party of some eight or ten persons; and after dinner I found myself sitting beside him and one of our most distinguished men of letters--Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, M.P. It happened to be a time when party feeling was running very high in Parliament, and I purposely turned the conversation in that direction. The question of Home Rule was under discussion, and it was common for Irish members--especially for some who were of very excitable temperament--to be called to order. Strong language was frequently used, such as quite passed the ordinary limits of Parliamentary conventions. I mentally recalled the current anecdote--I do not know whether it be true or not--that Daniel O'Connell, in one of his fierce disputes with Mr. Disraeli, had said that he must be descended from the unrepentant thief; and I asked the great statesman whether, during his half-century of experience in the House of Commons, there had been any change in the license of vituperation, which happened at that moment to be specially prevalent. "No," he said; "in that respect there has been no change. At all the crises which my memory recalls there have been outbursts of violent expression quite as strong as any which have been heard of late." As the conversation continued, he mentioned two changes which had occurred in the House of Commons--one a mere matter of costume; the other of much greater significance. An American guest at the dinner-table had observed that he could not remember any other party since he had been in England at which he was the only person present who wore a moustache. Mr. Gladstone said that, when he first entered Parliament, there were actually more members who still wore pigtails than those who wore the beard or moustache. At that time no one, as a rule, indulged in those appendages except officers in the army. There was one exception, the late Mr. Muntz, who was for many years member for Birmingham; and so noticeable was this exception, that in the House he was popularly known as "the man with the beard."

The other change was this: "In old days," said Mr. Gladstone, "the House used to have an absolute control of bores." Few of the members took frequent part in the debates. Discussion seemed, by common consent, to be left mainly to a score or two of leaders. There were gentlemen who had been for long years representatives of important cities, who were never known to have opened their lips. I myself in my boyhood knew one highly respected member who, if I remember rightly, had sat for a county town for nearly fifty years, and whose sole contribution to the debates in Parliament, for all that period, had been the single sentence, "I second the motion!" It is widely different now. I suppose that now any member who has sat for a number of years, and never even made his maiden speech, is a rare exception. Although the gift of utterance is supposed to be very much less rare than once it was, yet the few only are able to speak really well. This, however, does not prevent members from the free expression of their opinions, because in print one speech does not look very much unlike another. In many cases in these days members are speaking with far less reference to the House than to the Press gallery. Their constituents expect them to speak, and like to see their names and remarks in the daily papers, however ruthlessly they may be abbreviated by the reporters. In former days a bore was never tolerated. After a very few sentences the House gave such unconcealed expression to its impatience, and the orator was interrupted by such a continuous roar of "Divide, divide!... 'vide!... 'vide!... 'vide!" that the stoutest-hearted, after a short effort, gave way, and the House was not afflicted with a wearying tide of commonplace, "in one weak, washy, everlasting flood." At present it is not always so. It is indeed but seldom that a member feels perfectly willing to bestow on his fatigued fellow-senators the whole amount of his tediousness; but I have, not infrequently, seen a member listen with the blandest smile of indifference to the torrent of interruptions which marred his oratory--and tire his audience into partial silence by leaving on their minds the conviction that he _intended_ to say out what he had meant to say, so that the shortest way to get rid of him would be to let him maunder on to the end!

Reverting to the subject of strong language in the House, and again speaking of O'Connell, I asked Mr. Gladstone whether he had been present when the great demagogue had convulsed the House with laughter by his parody on Dryden's epigram on the three great poets, Homer, Virgil, and Milton. "Oh, yes," he answered. "I see him now before my mind's eye, as, with a broad gleam of amusement over his face, he kept looking up at Colonel Sibthorpe, the somewhat eccentric member for Lincoln, and then jotting down something in his notes. Colonel Sibthorpe, having been an officer in the army, was exempt from the then current convention of being close-shaven, and he was bearded like a pard. I cannot recall the exact epigram, but I remember the incident perfectly."

I had never seen O'Connell's epigram in print, but I quoted it as I had, years ago, heard it quoted to me--and quite incorrectly. "Oh, these colonels!" said O'Connell, "they remind me of the celebrated lines of the poet"--

"Three colonels in three distant counties born, Armagh and Clare, and Lincoln did adorn; The first in lengthiness of beard surpassed, The next in bushiness, in both the last: The force of nature could no further go-- To _beard_ the third she _shaved_ the other two!"

That was the form in which I had heard it quoted, but Mr. Lecky at once suggested that the third and fourth lines were purely imaginary, and I have since found that they really were something to this effect--

"The first in direst bigotry surpassed, The next in impudence--in both the last."

Delivered as the supposed "celebrated lines of the poet" were in O'Connell's rich brogue, and with his indescribable sense of humour, it may well be imagined that it was long before the laugh of the members died away!

In old days I was not infrequently present in the House during the gladiatorial combats, which were then of incessant occurrence, between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli. The House was always crowded, and the scenes were marked by an interest and vivacity which are now of far rarer occurrence. I well remember a long and brilliant speech of Mr. Disraeli's, which occupied perhaps two hours or more, late at night. During the speech--as is very common--he had to refresh his voice repeatedly by drinking some composition or other. Water is the safest refreshment for speakers under these circumstances, but I suppose that the friend who had been thus ministering to the speaker's necessities had brought sherry, or something of that kind. The consequence was that, without any fault on his part and quite unconsciously, Mr. Disraeli--who was, I believe, an habitually temperate man--was speaking at last with far less point and lucidity than was his wont. At the close of his speech Mr. Gladstone rose to answer, and began by the remark, "I shall not notice any of the concluding observations of the right honourable gentleman, because I am sure that the House will agree with me in thinking that they were due to"--and then he added with marked emphasis--"a somewhat _heated_ imagination."

It was unfortunate in those years of political antagonism that the two eminent leaders were men of temperaments absolutely antipathetic. It would have been difficult to find two men who, remarkable as were their gifts, differed from each other more widely in almost every characteristic of their minds. Mr. Disraeli was a man of essentially kind heart, and one whom I have good reason to regard with respect and gratitude. Much of his apparent acerbity, many of his strong attacks, were really only on the surface. I feel quite sure that for Mr. Gladstone--in spite of the many interchanges of criticism which sometimes sounded a little acrimonious--he felt not only a profound respect and admiration, but even no small personal regard. On one occasion he spoke of his great rival as "my right honourable _friend_, if he will allow me to call him so." The characteristic of Mr. Gladstone's mind was an intense moral sincerity, and he could not return the compliment. One cannot but regret that he felt himself unable cordially to reciprocate the kindly expression. Had he felt able to do so--had these two political opponents been able from that time to speak of each other as "my right honourable friend"--many acerbities of debate might have been materially softened. But in his reply, Mr. Gladstone, while he spoke with kind appreciation, could not, or would not, use the phrase which Mr. Disraeli had on that single occasion adopted. Perhaps he attached to it a meaning far deeper than its conventional significance. At any rate, the fact remains that, while in his response he spoke with dignified recognition of his opponent's gifts, and was evidently gratified by the expression he had used, he could not get himself to call Mr. Disraeli by the sacred name of "friend," and that word was, I believe, never again exchanged between them. But I only mention this little incident because in different ways it seems to me to have been touchingly to the credit of the best qualities of both. And in spite of so many years of gladiatorial combat in the arena of the House, when Lord Beaconsfield died Mr. Gladstone pronounced a eulogy upon him, generous yet strictly accurate in every particular.

On another occasion Mr. Gladstone--_more suo_ in his earlier days--had almost leapt to his feet to make a controversial speech, which he had poured forth with all that intensity of conviction which held the House in rapt attention even while many of its members were being convinced against their will. Mr. Disraeli began his reply by the remark that "Really the right honourable gentleman sprang up with such vehemence, and spoke with such energy, that he was often glad that there was between them"--and here he laid his hands on the large table at which the clerks sit and at which members take the oath, which occupies the greater part of the space between the Government bench and the leading members of the Opposition--"that there was between them a good solid substantial piece of furniture." The House laughed good-humouredly at the little harmless sarcasm and at the notion of Disraeli requiring a barrier of personal protection against such vehement assaults! I was told by one who heard the remark--and it is a pleasant little incident--that, on the evening after this speech, Mr. Gladstone had met Lady Beaconsfield at some social gathering, and, so far from resenting the little hit at himself, had cordially complimented her on the excellent speech which her husband had made on the previous evening. There is, however, no doubt that Mr. Gladstone sometimes winced under the subtle swordplay of his antagonist, just as Mr. Disraeli must have felt the force of the rolling tide of his opponent's oratory. But while Mr. Gladstone sat listening with every emotion reflected on his expressive and mobile countenance, Mr. Disraeli sat motionless, with features as unchanging as if he wore a mask.

The Chaplain of the House has an excellent seat in the gallery--one of the best seats for seeing and hearing--assigned to him by the courtesy of the members. I not infrequently availed myself of the privilege of occupying this seat, and in this way I was present at some of Mr. Gladstone's last appearances in the House, I particularly recall an incident which has since then been frequently alluded to, and which was very highly to the credit of Mr. Gladstone's essential kindness of heart. Mr. Austen Chamberlain, son of the Right Hon. J. Chamberlain, had delivered what was, I believe, his maiden speech. It exhibited many of the qualities of clear enunciation and forcible statement which make his father one of the best speakers in the present Parliament. Mr. Gladstone and (I suppose) the Liberal party in general had felt much hurt by the separation of Mr. Chamberlain from their councils, and by his partial alliance with their political opponents; and this feeling could not but be shared by Mr. Gladstone, who carried into politics an ardour of conviction of deeper intensity than is felt by ordinary minds. Mr. Austen Chamberlain's speech had, of course, been delivered in favour of views which Mr. Gladstone impugned, and nothing would have been easier to him than to bring down on the head of the young member the sledgehammer force of his experience, eloquence, and intellectual supremacy. So far from this, Mr. Gladstone not only pronounced a warm eulogy on the speech, but went out of his way to say--turning to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and entirely overlooking any momentary exacerbation of political opposition--that it was a speech which, in the ability and the modest force with which it had been delivered, "could not but be very delightful to a father's heart." Simple and spontaneous as the expression was, it caused visible pleasure to all who heard it. Such genuine amenities do much to soften the occasional exasperations of political struggle.

I have heard many fine and telling speeches in the House from its foremost debaters, from the days of Lord Palmerston to our own; but certainly I have heard no orators who impressed me at all so deeply as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright. It is, however, generally acknowledged that most of Mr. Bright's finest and most memorable speeches were not delivered in the House of Commons, but to vaster and more sympathetic audiences of the people from the midst of whom he had sprung. If I were asked what was the most eloquent speech to which I ever listened, I should at once answer, The speech which I heard Mr. Bright deliver at St. James's Hall at the time of the Second Reform Bill. The meeting was a mass meeting, and a ticket had been given me for the platform by an old friend and schoolfellow. I was seated between him and Mr. Frederic Harrison, just behind the orator of the evening. In the front row with Mr. Bright were the Rt. Hon. J. Ayrton, who had been First Commissioner of Works, and Mr. W. A. Cremer and Mr. Odger, who were prominent working-men leaders of the time. Among the audience, in the middle of the hall, sat Mr. John Stuart Mill, then one of the most celebrated thinkers of the day; and, throughout the meeting, he applauded with vehemence, freely bestowing his claps even on the obvious crudities of some of the working-men who subsequently spoke. As I was close behind Mr. Bright I could almost read the notes which lay before him on his broad-brimmed hat. They showed his method, which was carefully to write out his speech, to learn it by heart, and to refresh his memory by having before him some sheets of paper, on which in a large legible hand he had put down the leading substantives of every sentence. Besides the magic of his strong, manly, sympathetic voice, and the force of his Saxon English, and the purity of a style formed on the best models--especially, I believe, on John Milton and John Bunyan--he owed much of his power as an orator to the extreme deliberation of his delivery. Owing to this, an audience was able to see the point which he was intending to bring out, long before he actually expressed it. They were gradually wound up into a pitch of ever-increasing excitement and sympathy until the actual climax, so that it almost seemed as if the speaker was merely expressing in his single voice the common sentiment of thousands. Now, at the time of which I speak, Mr. Bright had been passing--as all the best and greatest men have to pass in their time--through what he called "hurricanes of abuse, and tornadoes of depreciation." He was commonly spoken of, in many of the daily papers, not only as a Radical, but as a revolutionary Jacobin, a political firebrand, and a pernicious demagogue. The point which he wanted to impress on his deeply sympathising hearers was that it was monstrous so to characterise him, when all that he had done was to point out the actual existence of perils which he had neither created nor intensified, but about which he had only uttered those timely warnings which sometimes enable a patriot to avert the terrible consequences that it might otherwise be too late to remedy. He spoke as follows, and the audience, which crowded the hall to its utmost capacity, followed him from clause to clause with breathless stillness. I cannot quote his exact words, but they were to this general effect:--

"I have," he said, "been called an incendiary, a firebrand, a dangerous agitator. Now, supposing that I were to go to the inhabitants of a village or hamlet on the side of a mountain, and were to say to them, 'Do you see that thin blue smoke which is issuing from the rifts of the mountain summit above your heads?' and were to warn them that it was a menace of peril. Suppose that they were heedless of my warning, and denounced me for awaking unnecessary alarm: and suppose that soon afterwards the mountain became a huge bellowing volcano, filling the heavens with red-hot ashes, and pouring huge streams of burning lava down its sides. Would it have been I who created that volcano? Would it have been my hand which stored it with combustible materials? Should I have been a dangerous agitator because I had warned the dwellers in that mountain hamlet to avert or escape from the perils by which they were 'menaced'?"

Such is my recollection of the passage which I heard so many years ago, and which I have doubtless spoiled in attempting to reproduce. But when the great orator, speaking with weighty deliberation, had reached the _dénouement_ of his striking metaphor, so powerfully had he wrought on the feelings of his hearers that an effect followed such as I have never seen on any other occasion. The whole vast audience, as though swayed by one common impulse, sprang to its feet--not gradually and at the initiative of one or two _claqueurs_ and partisans, but with an absolutely electric sympathy, and they remained on their feet cheering the speaker for five minutes. It was by far the most decisive triumph of the magic and mastery of eloquence that I have ever witnessed in my life.

Another remarkable incident occurred at the same meeting. Mr. Ayrton, in moving a vote of thanks to the chairman, had alluded to a huge procession--part of a demonstration of the working-classes in favour of the Reform Bill--which had taken place in London a few days previously. Lady Burdett-Coutts had witnessed the procession from a balcony in the window of her house as it passed down the length of Piccadilly and Oxford Street. She had been recognised, and, knowing her generous beneficence, the working-men had cheered her. Mr. Ayrton alluded to this, and had the very dubious taste to express a strong regret that the Queen, who was at Buckingham Palace, had not done the same. The allusion was singularly misplaced, and Mr. Ayrton, as one who had been a member of the Government, ought to have known that under no circumstances could her Majesty thus recognise a demonstration in favour of a Bill which excited great differences of opinion, and was still under discussion by the House of Commons. The speech was still more _mal à propos_ because it seemed, whether intentionally or not, to attribute to her Majesty a lack of that sympathy with the aspirations of the people which, on the contrary, the Queen has invariably shown, so that her kindness of heart has won a more unbounded affection than has ever been lavished on any previous Sovereign. Mr. Bright felt how unfortunate was this _gaucherie_, into which the speaker had perhaps unintentionally been led. He saw also how injurious it might be to the effect which the meeting would otherwise produce. When he rose to acknowledge the vote of thanks to himself, he not only defended her Majesty from the blame which Mr. Ayrton had implied, but, alluding with touching simplicity to the long and uninterrupted devotion which the Royal Lady had shown for so many years of widowhood to the memory of her great and princely consort, he showed the unfairness of the insinuation which might seem to have been implied.

The great voices of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright are silent. They have passed from the heated arena of politics, "to where beyond these voices there is peace"; and they have not left their equals behind them. We seem to be passing through one of those interspaces in national life which are not illuminated by minds so bright with genius as those which have ceased to shine. The soil of the next generation may perhaps produce a harvest as rich, or richer. Meanwhile we may at least rejoice that

"Great men have been among us; hands that penned And tongues that uttered wisdom:--better none."

THE HOUSE ECONOMICAL

By Lina Orman Cooper, Author of "Our Home Rulers," Etc.

"Domestic economy consists in spending a penny to save a pound. Political economy consists in spending a pound to save a penny."

Such is an aphorism left us by one of the wisest of men. It exactly defines the principle on which I shall deal with the subject of this paper. Real economy means good management, and is quite apart from penuriousness. It implies proper regulation of a household, and careful disposition or arrangement of work. We can be thrifty of our talents, time, and money without being niggardly, for frugality need never descend into parsimony if we are watchful. There are more precious things than £ s. d., after all, and looking after those other things makes us sympathetic and original.

For instance, the real House Economical suggests sunshine and purity. Without these, smallness of rent will be more than counter-balanced by increase in doctors' fees. Of necessity, it must be liberally and variously supplied, or satiety follows. It is true that red herrings offer a larger amount of nutriment for a given sum of money than any other kind of animal food. Yet it would not be really economical to feed our households continually on halfpenny herrings. A farthing dip is the cheapest light obtainable--but eyes would be ruined if we provided nothing but single candles in our establishments. Spices and condiments are rather adjuncts of food than necessities, yet they are medicinal in their properties and of extreme value in rendering food more palatable and stimulating a jaded appetite. So far for food--for it is with food we generally find a tendency to save begins.

True economy consists in maintaining the standard of health in a family at its highest. Expenditure towards this end can never be extravagant, even if it ranges from thick curtains over our doors to silk mufflers in windy weather. Not to provide our children with warm underclothing on the score of expense is the height of extravagance; to be content without sanitary surroundings and labour-saving appliances the depth of foolishness.

The House Economical may first of all be beautiful. A horizon that is bounded by a need for thrift more often than not tends to greyness and gloom. This should not be. Lovely surroundings are of economic value in keeping spirits up to a certain point. Digestion is promoted by eating in a bright, airy dining-room. A well-arranged bedroom may be productive of sleep.

Comfortable homes are economical ones, in the best sense of the word, saving time, fatigue, and temper. One hour's opportune rest on a Chesterfield may save hours of malaise and headache. The House Economical will have rules sufficiently elastic to allow of such occasional pauses in work--"come-apart-and-rest-for-a-while" possibilities--if called for.

One great principle in the House Economical is never to spend money on unwanted things because they happen to be seen. Another is, when wanted, to get the best procurable. "Cheap and nasty" is a very true union of words. Yet we must remember that some inexpensive substitutes are quite as good as costly things. A copper kettle, for instance, looks just as well and wears longer than a silver one. A1 plate lasts a lifetime if taken care of. Serge is more useful than satin, and just as suitable in its way.

"She looketh well to the ways of her household" was said of the virtuous woman of old. In the House Economical we must most closely follow her example in its ingle-nooks. Our average cook thinks it good to use only lumps of orrell in the range, ignoring the possibilities of saving in any form. Now all housekeepers know that pokers should be absent from the hearth if we would limit coal bills; that cinders, sifted and washed, are most useful fuel for frying and laundry work; that a judicious admixture of wet slack with wood or "nuts" is advisable. There are two economical ways of building and maintaining good fires in our parlours. One is to ignite at the top and suffer to burn _downwards_. The other is to lay and light after the usual fashion and "backen" with a bucket of damp coal dust. Either procedure gives a fire that will burn for hours without attention, if not "raked" by Mary Jane. We need not, like the ghost in Hamlet, "be condemned to fast in fires" even in the House Economical, if we see that every hearth burns its own cinders--that the kitchen stove consumes every bit of table refuse--and that the coal man delivers eight bags of slack with every ton of coal.

In the House Economical some laundry work must be done--by all means send out starched things. But Jaeger underclothing, and all flannels, last longer when washed at home. It has been said that servants, nowadays, are like monkey soap--and "will not wash clothes." But insertion of a clause in our hiring lease would show them what is required in this line. To keep woollies soft and unshrunken, they must be soaked in a bath containing two parts cold to one of hot water. In this, a handful of boiled soap jelly is stirred (to a lather) and to it one tablespoonful of ammonia (liquid) added. This volatile spirit loosens all dirt, and our clothing requires no rubbing, only a thorough rinsing. After shaking well, the garments must be hung out in a shady, sunless place to dry, and finished with a warm smoother. No "cast-iron back with a hinge in it" is required for scientific washing, and a few minutes' weekly supervision will enable the mistress of the House Economical to clothe her household in double garments without fear.

In the House Economical we shall rigidly exclude everything fusty and dusty. Therefore carpets will be conspicuous by their absence from the sleeping-rooms, especially those threadbare old lengths and squares usually relegated to our bedrooms. Floors will be disinfected and stained, at the cost of a few pence, by the use of permanganate of potash, and polished with beeswax and turpentine. A cleanly smell, exemption from germs and spores and microbes, and knowledge of the perfectly sanitary condition of our sleeping chambers will result.

"A stitch in time saves nine" is the motto writ large on the lintel of the House Economical. A supply of carpenterial tools, then, will always be at hand to prevent recourse to that most expensive luxury--the British workman. We shall oil locks and link chains, keep our window cords mended and its sash running free. We shall learn how to hammer and plane and file and screw. A bit and brace will be no wonderful instrument to us but a much-used friend. A handy man about the place is a well-known boon. Who can value at her right worth the handy woman?

It is a well-known fact that "many hands make light work," but we must remember that limbs imply mouths, and that mouths must be filled. Hence, in the House Economical, each child will have its own vineyard to keep. Helpful, willing little fingers will be trained to usefulness. Our young folk find as much pleasure in _resultful_ effort as in objectless employment--making beds can be as much "play" as arranging a doll's house--and Tommy can be taught to mend as well as to break.

Perhaps, in the House Economical, we are inclined rather to forget that there is a time to spend as well as a time to keep (Eccles. iii.). The very fact of an economic course in general ought to help us to a liberal one at proper seasons. Cheese-paring and skinning a flint are occupations at all times to be avoided, more especially so when festivals or hospitality call for an open hand. The royal road to prosperity is bordered by scattered wealth and watered with generosity. The wisest of men said so, and I believe him.

What can I say further of the many other avenues leading up to and from the House Economical? Of the soap to be bought by the stone and the soda in sacks? Of the plaice for luncheon instead of halibut? Of rhubarb mixed with cherries, and such like? In treating of such details in the House Economical, we are treading on less flowery meads than when considering its twin sisters--the Palace Beautiful and the House Comfortable. Yet, perhaps, it needs more real wisdom to run a family coach on economically pleasant lines than it does to be either artistic or cosy. "Common tasks require all the force of a trained intellect to bear upon them." So it needs a cultivated brain, sanctified common sense, and skilful hands, to brighten the everyday minutiæ of life in the House essentially Economical.

THE MINOR CANON'S DAUGHTER

_THE STORY OF A CATHEDRAL TOWN._

By E. S. Curry, Author of "One of the Greatest," "Closely Veiled," Etc.