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STUDIES AND STORIES

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STUDIES

and

STORIES

By

Mrs. Molesworth

Author of

" Carrots" " The Palace in the Garden,^^

''A Charge Fulfilled ;'

*^ Neighbours,''^

etc.

London

A. D. Innes & Co.

31 6- 32 Bedford Street
1893

LONDON :

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

SRLF
YRL

5529
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TO

MY GIRL READERS.

KNOWN AND UNKNOWN.

CONTENTS.

" Coming Out" .

Hans Christian Andersen .

Mrs. Ewing's Less Well-known

Princess Ice-heart

Old Gervais

"Once Kissed " .

The Sealskin Purse .

The Abbaye de C£risy

English Girlhood

Fiction: its Use and Abuse

Books

PAGE
I

II

31
63

95
130
146
187
20S
236

/•

STUDIES AND STORIES.

"COMING our."

" Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,"

That is a very hackneyed quotation, is it not?
It is so pretty, however, so pretty and " poetical,"
so appropriate to the sort of notion people have
long had and like to have about their girls, that
it is not likely to get into disfavour in a hurry. It
is very pretty, and so are the pictures it has more
than once suggested. But is it true? I scarcely
think so.

There are some girls — I myself have known a
few — who are not in a hurry to be grown-up, and
to *' come out." But even with these I do not
think the motive of the "reluctance" is such as
the poet infers. For they arc not usually of the

B

2 STUDIES AND STORIES.

gentle, tender, retiring order of maidens. The
girls I have known who " hated " to think of being
" really grown-up," were rather of the tomboy,
hoyden class, who could not bear the idea of long-
skirts and quiet movements, of " done-up " hair
and neatly buttoned gloves, of no more scaling of
garden^vvalls with their brothers in the holidays, or
riding of barebacked ponies round the paddocks.
I fear I must plead guilty to a certain weakness
for these dear tomboys — while they are tomboys,
that is to say ; for, curiously enough, though
from causes not very far to seek, they are some-
times very disappointing when they do "come
out." The "hoydenishness," to coin a word,
develops or degenerates into fastness, or, what is
still stranger and quite as much to be deprecated,
into vanity and frivolity of a deeper though less
noisy kind.

" One would scarcely recognize Maud So-and-
so," you hear it said. "She is so spoilt, so
* stuck-up' and conceited. And do you remember
how simple and unaffected — almost too unaffected
— she was before she came out ? "

''COMING OUT:' 3

Unaffected ; yes, so she was, perhaps. " Simple ''
— she may have seemed so ; but true simpHcity
has its roots deeper down. To be genuine and
lasting they must strike in the soil of unselfishness
and self-forgettingness. And if I\Iaud was never
taught to be unselfish ; if, however unconsciously,
she was allowed to grow up in a chamber of
mirrors, to act and think and feel tacitly as if the
universe revolved round her own little self, how
can one wonder if the selfish child matures into
the selfish woman, the real object of whose exist-
ence is to get as much pleasure and amusement
out of life as she can ?

But all girls are not thus specially selfish.
Many — a great many at least — wisli not to be so,
and not a few arc so without knowing it. And to
a certain extent there is a sort of selfishness
inherent in the mere fact of youth and health and
vigorous life, which scarcely deserves so harsh a
name. It is, in a sense, but a phase which has,
like childish ailments, to be passed through. And
youth and full health and beauty last but a short
time at best. Heaven forbid that we should be

4 STUDIES AND STORIES.

hard upon their possessors ; it is no crime to be
brimful of their delight while it does last, any
more than it is a crime for the birds to carol in
the springtime, or for the flowers to smile up with
their innocent faces to the sun.

But human beings — even girls — are something
more than birds and flowers ! And this is why
I would like to give a very few words of advice,
or warning, to any maidens on the verge of this
momentous " coming out," of which we hear so
often.

It is not to spoil your fresh, pleasure, or to
shorten it, that I would speak. It is to enhance
it, and make of it a stepping-stone to more lasting
good.

There is, it seems to mc, one great fallacy at the
root of our treatment of girls at this stage. The
whole system of thought and arrangement about
them undergoes all of a sudden, like a transform-
ation scene on the stage, a complete change.
Hitherto, young as they were, they have been
treated more or less as reasonable beings, with
minds and conscienceSj and to a certain extent,

"COMING OUT." 5

responsibilities. Their hours and duties have been
carefully regulated by mammas and governesses ;
the studies for which they showed special aptitude
have been paid particular attention to ; they have
been required to be punctual and regular ; books
of amusement — all amusements indeed — have been
cautiously selected, and but moderately indulged
in. ]5ut with the "hey presto " of " coming out"
all changes. Duties, responsibilities, obligations,
go to the wall. Blanche is "out"; henceforth,
for the next two or three years at least, frivolity
and pleasure are to be the order of the day. In
some cases, that it is so comes from a sort of
thoughtless subscribing to conventionality — " every-
body " does it, so we do it ; in others the motives
are deeper and — though it is an ugl}' word to use,
I fear we must use it — coarser. The di'bittante
is to be dressed to the greatest advantage, and
taken out into society with a very defined though
seldom avowed object ; in some other cases the
motive, though less worldl\-, is, it seems to me,
little short of cruel. On the principle acted upon,
we are told — I really do not know if it is true or

6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

not — by confectioners who allow their new appren-
tices to eat as many sweets as they please, that
they may the sooner lose all liking for them, some
parents and guardians exaggerate the amount of
gaiety they provide for their newly fledged
daughter. " She will the sooner tire of it, and settle
down to rational things," I have heard it said.

Why should she be foredoomed to tire of it,
poor child ? Why should she not be taught to
enter into amusements, after all many of them
good things in their place, reasonably and sparingly,
so that she need never " tire " of refined and genial
social recreations ? And ivill she tire of them
according to this strange plan ? In one sense, yes,
only too surely and bitterly ; in another, no, for
these distorted " pleasures," even though no longer
worthy of the name, are pretty sure to have become
a necessity of her otherwise empty life. And
whether she marry, or whether she do not, it will
be a hard struggle, and one demanding unusual
strength of character and determination, to get
back to the sober and sensible path from which
she need never have strayed.

'* COMING out:' 7

That Is the root of it. What should be the
exception is made the rule ; what should be the
relaxation of life is made its business — everything
is thrown out of gear, and everything suffers. It
cannot but be so ; thank God it must be so — we
cannot go on far in a wrong direction without
becoming conscious of it.

But what is to be done ? It is always easier to
describe an evil than to prescribe a cure. And I
cannot say much. I can only suggest — to girls
themselves, and, I trust without officiousness or
presumption, to those who have the charge and
direction of them — some simple ways by which a
more satisfactory state of things may be induced.
First and foremost, look well about you, dear
Blanche, when you are released from schoolroom
hours and rules, and say to yourself, "Now that I
have my time more at my own disposal, let me try
to use at least some small part of it for others."
There must be, there is sure to be, somebody you
can do something for every day — some one over-
burdened, perhaps in your own home, whose cares
}-ou may lighten by a little steady, to-be-rclied-upon
help.

8 STUDIES AND STORIES.

" Blanche has undertaken it, so it will be done."
What a delightful thing to have said or thought
of you ! Or outside your own home — oh dear,
the work there is to do in the world ! Some of it
you will surely get leave to bestow your little quota
of ready and willing even though inexperienced
efforts upon, however affection and anxiety may
dread your " over doing " yourself. You must be
dutiful and docile about it, remember, and very,
ve/y slow to judge others whose zeal seems to you
lukewarm. A time may come when "greater
things " may be put in your power, if in the small
ones you show yourself faithful.

Then again, do not think your studies are at an
end with the schoolroom. Try and read steadily^
even if though more than a very short time daily
be impossible, some book or books which your
good sense or the advice of others tells you will be
profitable. And in whatever you do, try — to the
utmost of your power, and without infringing the
rights of others to your time and your considera-
tion— try to be regular. Be as early a riser as is
possible for you ; answer notes — necessary notes —

''COMING OUT." • 9

as quickly as you can, while endeavouring not to
increase the number of the ////necessary ones, in
these modern times ahnost as great a tax as the
empty visits to mere acquaintances, whom we
have not leisure to cultivate into "friends." Never
forget the few who have a real claim on you for
long unhurried letters — above all Jack or Harry ;
we have most of us, alas ! a Jack or a Harry far
away, in these days of overcrowded professions
(perhaps it is wrong to say " alas ! ") ; away, some-
where, working hard, after his careless merry Eton
or Harrow school-life, in the vague mysterious
" colonies " we mothers and sisters know so little
about, where whatever our boys learn, thc)- learn
nothing better than to love " home," as they never
loved it before.

And, though this is scarcely the place, nor is it
within my present province to do more than touch
in the very slightest way upon such subjects — never
forget, in thc midst of the whirl which perhaps you
can scarcely escape, your first and highest and
realcst duties of all. It may be difficult, sometimes
it is sure to be so — sometimes even it will seem all

10 STUDIES AND STORIES.

" of no use." But take courage ; the greater the
effort, the greater will be the help you may — oh,
how certainly — rely upon.

It is a waiting time for you. Your future the
next few years must, in one way especially, decide.
And at your age you cannot map out your life.
But even if more " play " is forced upon you than
you would choose, think of it as such ; never forget
that somewhere and in some way God has work
preparing for you to do, that you are a woman and
not a butterfly, that even your present difficulties
and distractions may be woven into the marvellous
web, of which a few straggling threads are all we
are as yet able to catch hold of.

( ir )

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

" What is genius but finer love ? " — Emerson.

There are some few writers concerning whom,
however widely opinions may vary as to the
importance, beauty, or lasting value of their work,
all are on one point agreed : they stand alone ; if
not above, at least apart from, the " odiousness "
of comparison. And among these few one might
again select a yet smaller number, of whom it could
almost be maintained that these not even " critics "
can "criticize." Of Hans Christian Andersen, the
gentle, childlike-spirited Dane, the beneficent
genius of our early years, can both these things
be said. In the long line of the illustrious of our
own days he stands in his niche apart, and the
soft glow which surrounds him like a halo, too soft
and loving, and withal mysterious, to dazzle, yet
nils our eyes so as to make it no easy matter to

13 STUDIES AND STORIES.

take his measure with perfect exactitude. The
very sound of his familiar name brings with it a
rush of the sweetest associations ; of Christmas-
trees and Christmas chimes ; of midsummer fancies
in the scented pinewoods ; of the very happiest
hours of happy childhood, past and yet Hving in
memory for ever ; in his own quaint words " in
the book of the heart kept close and not for-
gotten."

But it would be to narrow quite unfairly the
scope and extent of Andersen's peculiar genius
were we to consider it as altogether or even mainly
limited to literature for the young. Much, indeed,
that he has written is not only altogether beyond
the comprehension and sympathy of children, but
decidedly — as will be afterwards pointed out more
definitely — unsuited and undesirable for them.
Those of his stories and fables seemingly intended
for the young are at the same time full of charm
and interest for those of older growth, and this,
perhaps, has unconsciously led to the misappre-
hension that all he wrote (his novels, of course,
excepted), was with a special view to the pleasure

BANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEiV. 1 3

and profit of the younger generation. And very
defined " intention," strictly speaking, in this sense,
he probably was without. He wrote as he was
moved, and as he felt he must. His own essen-
tially childlike spirit pervades the whole, is indeed
the keynote to its beaut)', but he gave his work to
the world unfettered by restrictions and conditions.
It is for us, his grateful readers, parents and
teachers especially, to discriminate as to what
we find suited to the little ones among us. And
this fact has, I think, in England especially, been
somewhat overlooked in the rather heterogeneous
translations and collections commonly spoken of
in the mass as " Andersen's fairy tales." *

Yet the more one reads and reads yet again of
his works, the more strongly is impressed upon

* An exception to tliis, to some extent, is to be found in Mrs.
Paull's translation, by far the best, of Andersen's earlier works, and
published as "a special adaptation and arrangement for young
people." But even in this selection I venture to object to some of
the laics introduced, and to parts of others. In making a still more
careful choice for children's own reading, many further stories and
sketches might be retained and added, with but very slight modifi-
cations and suppressions ; such being, in almost every instance, only
called for through the author's irrepressible love of a dash of the
weird and ghastly.

14 STUDIES AND STORIES.

one the conviction that Hans Andersen is at his
best, his "happiest," certainly, both in the literary
and the literal sense of the expression, when
thoroughly living in child-world. His earlier
stories and fables are universally the best loved,
and of these the greater number are in every way
fitted for children ; there is less of the under-note
of sadness and melancholy, of which in all true
poetry there must be a suggestion, though in the
truest and best — and this is pre-eminently the case
with Andersen — one rises in the end still higher,
above even the loftiest clouds to the regions where
faith tells us of the Eternal Light.

And to speak of this Danish writer as 'a poet is
surely more than permissible. It may be a trite
saying, but is none the less true, that much of the
most beautiful poetry has been written as prose.
So in child-world, with the innocent beings in
some sense nearer heaven than are the grown men
and women, sight-dimmed in the denser regions
of earthly struggle and toil, with the little ones
but vaguely conscious that any clouds exist,
Andersen, as poet no less than child-lover, is most

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. I 5

at home. True seer, his vision penetrates beyond
the darkness, it has no lasting power to depress or
confuse him, but still he would fain linger with
these as yet unsullied and untried, to whom life
itself is more than half a fairy-tale of wonder and
of fun, to whom, it would almost seem, are some-
times vouchsafed gleams of that kingdom to which
only through sore strife and tribulation can human
souls attain.

Hans Andersen's immense success and popu-
larity is sometimes attributed to a circumstance
which, though never, I think, enumerated among
the gifts of the old-world fairy godmothers, might
yet at first sight almost appear like a piece of
"good luck." He had the happiness to be born
at the right time. To some extent contempo-
raneous with the careful and learned work of the
Brothers Grimm, his early productions were indeed
given to the European public at a moment \\\\q.\\
taste and the finer perceptions seemed awaking
from a long period of sleep, a period during which,
it may be said, that spiritual insight in more than
one direction was, for the time, altogether lost.

1 6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

and during which there reigned, not unnaturally,
a deplorable ignorance of the deeper and higher
meanings of education. For besides other lament-
able neglects or mistakes, the training of the
imagination, certainly one of the most powerful
for good or evil of our faculties, was either com-
pletely ignored or pretentiously discussed, from
artificial and unreal standpoints. But is not an
artist of the first order in his own path, always
born at a lucky moment ? To take the converse
of the old proverb of the bad workman who never
finds good tools, does not the best work always
find appreciators ? And an author of real power,
in these modern times especially, can, with the aid
of cheap books and libraries and the ever-increas-
ing knowledge of foreign languages, to a great
extent educate his own audience, can develop the
very qualities required to understand him.

Thus, is it not more correct to say that Ander-
sen had himself a hand in this awakening, on the
face of it so fortunate for him, this revival or
renaissance of the imaginative or poetic spirit
along certain lines ? With rightly discarded super-

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. I /

stitions had been swept away in wholesale fashion
much that was not only harmless but valuable,
much full of tender and beautiful association.
Folk-lore and legend had crept terror-stricken into
the remotest corners, and, still more to be deplored,
all genuine and intuitive love of nature seemed for
the time to have disappeared. " Fairy-tale," in
short, to use the word in Andersen's own symbolical
and comprehensive sense, " Fairy-tale " herself had
deserted the world ; the forests and the brooks
were lonely and silent, the birds sang less sweetly,
the winds wailed their reproach. Saddest of all
were the nurseries and schoolrooms, where the
children pined for they knew not what. But
" Fairy-tale," though for long years she may hide,
till mankind has well-nigh forgotten her existence,
yet sooner or later will return ; " Fairy-tale never
dies." And is not all gratitude due to those who
have lured her back to dwell again among us ?

This generation, it is not too much to sa)', will
not have time fully to gauge and realize the good
work which Hans Andersen helped to accomplish.
The inauguration of a new era in child literature

c

1 8 STUDIES AND STORIES.

was but a part of it, though a great one ; for truly
to children he may be said to have changed the
face of the world, gilding the commonest objects
with the brightness of his loving and delicate and
humorous fancy, so that, as many could personally
testify, a few shells or pebbles, a broken jug or a
fragment of china, become material enough with
which to construct stories, to their little inventors
as wonderful and interesting as those of the
thousand-and-one nights ; while from the tall fir-
tree to the tiniest daisy-bud, all nature, through
his magic spectacles, grows instinct with sympathy
and meaning.

Anything like an exhaustive classification of all
Andersen's tales and sketches, anything approach-
ing to a complete chronicle or even catalogue of
them, would demand more space than is mine to
give, and on the reader's part absorb time which
would be more pleasantly and profitably employed
in drinking at the fountain-head, and there form-
ing his own opinions. But to obtain a fairly com-
prehensive idea of the grasp and quality of his
work it may be useful to divide it into three

//A.VS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. IQ

groups : those of fairy stories proper, so to speak ;
of fable, parable or allegory ; and thirdly, of what
we may call prose tales or sketches. Any hard-
and-fast lines, however, of demarcation cannot be
drawn, for these groups incessantly and on all
sides overlap each other. The genius of Andersen
could not be restricted to fit any groove or suit any
taste. Even such a rough-and-ready separation of
his stories, as into "grave and gay," would be im-
possible. In the most pathetic, start up, when
least expected, the irrepressible imps of his fun
and humour ; in the merriest, one strikes abruptly
a note of melancholy. And in both, the fascina-
tion of mystery and reserve is never wanting.

It is, above all, in the first and smallest group —
that of genuine fairy-tale — that he is most asso-
ciated with and best suited to children. Yet even
here it is but fair to remember that he wrote with
no very definite or special intention of confining
himself to such an audience. He loved children
as he loved everything natural and spontaneous ;
his own spirit was so essentially child-like that
child-world was its true home, but there was

20 STUDIES AND STORIES.

nothing of the intentional teacher or educator
about him ; he has tossed us his rich wealth of
flowers to arrange and bestow as seems to us best.
In the greater number of these, his earlier pro-
ductions, there is but little that we would keep
back or alter for even the very youngest readers,
and that little half regretfully, as the most careful
touch seems desecration. One of the loveliest and
best-loved of the longer fairy-tales is that of " The
Eleven Wild Swans," of which the dominant idea
is a peculiarly sweet and, in such stories, a some-
what rare one, that of brotherly and sisterly affec-
tion. Nothing more charming than the gentle yet
brave Elisa, whom even the venomous toads could
not injure or sully, can well be imagined. And
the one part of the story which it is best to suppress
in reading it to children, that which tells of the
hideous ghouls in the churchyard, yet doubtless
adds by contrast to the effect of the whole. It is
impossible at any age to read this story without a
shiver of anxiety as the fatal moment approaches
— zvill the nettle-shirts be finished in time ? — and
the half-humorous, half-pathetic touch which leaves

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. 2 I

the youngest prince with one swan's wing in-
stead of an arm, is curiously characteristic. In
this story there is a decided flavour of the sea,
still more strongly brought out, of course, in the
even more exquisite, Undine-\\k.c tale of ** The
Little INIermaid," the most pathetic of all these
fairy-tales. It recalls De la Motte Fouque's
story, but recalls it only sufficiently to mark
essential differences. There is less in " The Little
Mermaid" of the old-world " Neck" legend, which
doubtless suggested the marvellous creation of
" Undine " ; though here and there throughout
Hans Andersen's tales and sketches — and this
by no means detracts from their merit and
originality — one detects the shadow of ancient
traditions, of northern tradition above all. He is
in heart and soul of the north ; " he loves the cold
best," as a child was once heard to say with a
thrill of mingled awe and sympathy. The ocean,
the waves, and the sandy shore are dear to him
at all times ; but to kindle his enthusiasm to the
utmost, to inspire his most vivid word-pictures it
must be the Northern Sea with its fiords and its fogs,

23 STUDIES AND STORIES.

the north itself with the secrets of its untrodden ice-
fields, its glaciers, and eternal snow ; the reindeer
and the sea-bird are his best-loved familiars. And
something of this northern spirit is to be felt in
the moral atmosphere of all his writings. It is
white with the whiteness of child-like purity ; cold,
though not chilly, reserved and restrained, never
overflowing or exaggerated. There is nothing
luscious or sensuous even in his rare allusions
to southern scenes ; he loves the summer and
its glories, but the silence and mystery of the
winter, like a magnet, are ever drawing him to
the sterner regions of the north.

" The Snow Queen " is another of this group
of his stories, for it is really a fairy-tale, though
now and then it plunges almost abruptly into
allegory, and allegory of a highly mystic kind.
But "Kay" and "Gerda" are thoroughly the
hero and heroine of a fairy-story, and the little
robber maiden, in spite of her terrible knife and
the pistols in her belt, is curiously fascinating to
children's fancy.

The two dainty little nursery idylls, "Totty" or

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. 23

" Tiny," as it is varyingly translated, and " Little
Ida's Flowers," arc pitched in quite another key.
It is as if now and then Andersen gave his
fancy a rest, letting it gently stray in a garden
of the simplest and sweetest conceits. These
pretty little stories, with a few others of the same
tone, can be understood and appreciated by the
tiniest hearers, yet there is no " writing down "
in them. The narrator enjoys them himself, is
hand-in-hand with his hearers, like "the delight-
ful student," whom the stupid lawyer sneers at
" for putting such nonsense in a child's head."

Of a different type again arc such tales as
"The Tinder-Box," "The Flying Trunk," and
"The Travelling Companion." The two former
are thorough-going fairy-tales of the orthodox
order, though the disappointing conclusion of
the second is scarcely en ri'glc, and the wholesale
cutting off of heads in the first reminds one of
"Alice in Wonderland!" In "The Travelling
Companion " the characteristic touch of weirdncss
startles one at the end, where the familiar friend
discloses himself as no living being but a ghost.

24 STUDIES AND STORIES.

" The Clogs of Fortune," one of Andersen's very
cleverest freaks, is tantalizingly short ; one would
fain journey still further and to yet stranger
scenes and remoter times with such a guide.

The terms "fable," "parable," and "allegory,"
the first especially, with its somewhat dry and
sententious associations, describe but approxi-
mately and most inadequately a large number
of Hans Andersen's productions, which it is
nevertheless difficult to designate more aptly.
They are little dramas, permeated with human
feelings and interests, and bristling with human
fun, whether the actors in them be birds, beasts,
or fishes, trees and flowers, or even only old street-
lamps and darning-needles ! Who, man, woman,
or child, that has read of the little fir-tree, hopeful
and sanguine to the end, but has felt ready to
weep for its sore, though perhaps deserved dis-
appointment ; who can refrain from sharing in
the parental anxieties of the storks, even while
laughing at their indomitable conceit ; who can
follow unmoved the fortunes of the tin-soldier,
brave and faithful to his last drop— of lead?

I/AXS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. 2$

Nothing approaching to these gems of fable has
ever been given to the world, save perhaps in
some of Mrs. Ewing's delicious " animal stories "
— her " Father Hedgehog," or the albatrosses in
her "Kergvelen's Land." And of them all, ranks
first the inimitable history of" The Ugly Duckling,"
with its humour and pathos, the latter rising at
the end into allegory of a high order, for these
three divisions of the class we are now considering
constantly interweave and mingle with each other.
They are, perhaps, the most distinctly character-
istic of all Andersen's writings ; uniting in one
the greatest simplicity and homeliness of material
with the most poetical mysticism. Such of them
as best fall under the head of " parables " — of
which "The Toad," "There's a Difference," and
"The Last Dream of the Old Oak," may be given
as instances — are directly religious in their teach-
ing, inspired indeed, in the highest and noblest
sense. Throughout them all, throughout every-
thing he writes, the spirit of " Fairy-tale '' — his
h'ege lady, to whom all his powers are dedicated —
is never absent. Even in the larfjer and most

26 STUDIES AND STORIES.

important of his parables, or more correctly speak-
ing, perhaps, allegories, her magic presence is ever
perceptible, plainly so in the wonderful story of
" The Marsh King's Daughter," where at her
summons the genii of the south and the north
meet together from the ends of the earth, from
the banks of the Nile, " where the grey pyramids
stand like broken shadows in the clear air from
the far-off desert," from " the wild moorlands of
Wendsyssell," where, in the ever-hovering mists,
"the birch with its white bark, the reeds with
their feathery tips," grow and flourish as they
did a thousand years ago ; less visible, though
still present in the strangely weird tale of poor
Karen in her red shoes, and in the almost terrible
allegory of Inge, the ''girl who trod upon a loaf"
There remains still, besides the novels, poems,
and travels, written by Hans Andersen,* a long
list of what, for the sake of distinction, I have
called his " prose stories." Prominent among

* His novels are " The Improvisatore " and " O.T." Few of his
poems are translated. His travels are " A Journey on Foot from
the Holm Canal to the East Point of Amager," and several shorter
accounts of his journeyings, called " Travel Sketches."

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. 2/

these arc : " A Story from the Sand-hills," " lb
and Little Christine," and "The Ice-Maiden,"
the last perhaps more of an allegory than a real
narrative, though the events it relates are all
such as might actually have happened. It is
again a story of the frost and the snow, the
scene being in the high regions of Switzerland
instead of the northern latitudes. It is by no
means a story for children, though pure and
beautiful in feeling. It is also intensely sad,
save where the parlour-cat and his crony of the
kitchen relieve the strain by their cynical but yet
comical gossip and remarks. "lb and Little
Christine" is another Jutland tale, sad also, though
quite charming in its bits of description of natural
scenery, as, for instance, when telling of the two
tiny children's voyage in the boat or raft on the
river.

" They floated on swiftl}-, for the tide was in
their favour, passing over lakes, formed by the
stream in its course. Sometimes they seemed
quite enclosed by reeds and water-plants, yet there
was always room for them to pass out, although

28 STUDIES AND STORIES.

the old trees overhung the water, and the old oaks
stretched out their bare branches as if they had
turned up their sleeves and wished to show their
knotty, naked arms. Old alders, whose roots were
loosened from the banks, clung with their fibres to
the bottom of the stream, and the tips of the
branches above the water looked like little woody
islands. The water-lilies waved themselves to and
fro on the river, everything made the excursion
beautiful, and at last they came to the great eel-
weir, where the water rushed through the flood-
gates, and the children thought this a charming
sight."

And this story is lightened by a gleam of true
brightness at its close.

" A Story from the Sand-hills " is more like a
poem than a narrative, though I have called it
" prose." It has nothing of allegory or fairy-tale,
but its ending is like a psalm. Yet even here
the never-failing touch of fun comes in with the
mention of the eels, and there is nothing ghastly
or weird in it, as in the almost nightmare-like tale
of " Anne Lisbeth."

J/ANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. 29

From this it is a relief to turn to the sweet
home-like quaintness of "The Old House," with
its happy yet pathetic ending, and to the clever
little story of " The Real Princess," a reproduction,
I believe, of an old Danish "household word," with
a very true and delicate under-meaning. The
story told by the Greek shepherd, "The Covenant
of Friendship,'' and a still shorter one, " The Jewish
Maiden," are both gems of their kind, rendered
picturesque by their Eastern background. Some
other sketches are peculiarly interesting as con-
taining recollections or associations of the author's
own childhood ; such are " The Bell-deep," " Holger
Danske," and " The Wind moves the Sign-boards."
And the little scries of pictures in words, " What
the Moon saw," are like a necklace of pearls. It
is indeed difficult to tear one's self away from the
fascination of Hans Andersen's writings, and their
charm is increased by what we know of himself
Humble in origin, yet lofty in spirit ; genial, loving,
and grateful, though his path was for long a toil-
some and upward one, though hardship and priva-
tion were well known to him, and he enjoyed no

30 STUDIES AND STORIES,

exemption from the common lot, yet life, he simply
tells us, was to him "a beautiful fairy-tale, so full
of brightness and good fortune." He bore in his
own soul the magic talisman, the secret of true
blessedness.

( 31 )

MRS. EWINGS LESS WELL-
KNOWN BOOKS.

(From the ContenipJrary RevUzc, March, 1886.)

" I believe it is no wrong observation, that persons of genius, and
those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of Xature.''

— I'OI'E.

" (jod has a few of us whom lie whispers in the ear." — ROBERT
Browning.

Little more than twelve years have passed since
a thrill of sorrow vibrated through the hearts of
many English children on hearing of the death
of their devoted friend, Mrs. Gatty. She died in
October, 1873, at the age of si.\ty-four. Her
writings have had a great and lasting influence
on our juvenile literature. Many of them, it is
true, appeal to those who have left cliildhood
behind, even more strongly than to those for
whom they were specially intended. The poetry
of much of their symbolism, still more the sug-

32 STUDIES AND STORIES.

gestion of the mystical meaning, the "hidden
soul," of the external objects amidst which we
live, can, indeed, be but very imperfectly appre-
ciated by children, yet many children are intensely
sensitive to much they can but most vaguely
understand.* And this no one knew by intuition
and by practical experience more thoroughly than
Mrs. Gatty. The main-spring of almost all her
literary achievements is to be found in her intense
interest in, and sympathy with, the young, which
led to her dedicating, as she did, her powers to
their service.

And for few things are children more her
debtors than for the vivid interest in natural
objects of all kinds which she awakens. Not
only the birds and beasts of our wood and fields,
all our " furred and feathered " neighbours, but
even "the dear green lizards," "the great goggle-
eyed frogs," she teaches her readers to love as
friends and fellow-sojourners in this world, which
a little more widely extended sympathy would

* See especially, "Parables from Nature," First and Second
Series, and " Worlds not Realized." (Messrs. G. Bell & Sons.)

MRS. E WING'S LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 33

render to many so much less dreary than it is.
Nay, more, the very commonest things and inci-
dents of daily life, the changing seasons, the rain
and sunshine, snow and mists, the moss on an old
flower-pot, the vegetables in a cottage garden, she
invests with a vitality that might make better
than a fairy-tale out of the dullest walk or most
commonplace surroundings. It would have been
strange indeed if the boys and girls of that day,
among whom were many personally unknown'
little correspondents, her " magazine children," as
her daughter calls them, had not grieved for the
loss of Mrs. Gatt}'.

And now, again, child-world has been mourn-
ing, and this time in a sense even more incon-
solably. For it was on Juliana Ewing, of all the
Gatty family, that the mantle of her mother's
rare and sweet gifts most fully descended. And
she, too, is gone. The 13th of last May was a
sorrowful day for our nurseries and schoolrooms.
It saw the death of the friend who had worked
for them so faithfully. She thought of her young
readers to the last ; a number of but skctched-in

D

34 STUDIES AND STORIES.

or unfinished stories testify to the projects she had
hoped to execute. But it was not to be. The
brave, gentle woman had completed her task on
earth — resigned as ever, yet as ever bright and
hopeful, able even in her dying days to enter so
heartily into the spirit of a humorous story that,
as her sister tells us, " we had to leave off reading
it for fear of doing her harm," * dear " Madam
Liberality " f passed away to that other world
which to one like her can never have seemed a
very strange or distant one.

It is not, however, of Mrs. Ewing herself that I
propose to speak, nor even of those of her books
which, in the course of the last few months especially,
have become so well known, so universally loved,
that they may indeed be spoken of as " household
words." " Jackanapes," " Daddy Darwin's Dove-

* See "Juliana Horatia Ewing and lier Books." By Iloratia K.
F, Gatty. (S.P.C.K., Northumberland x\ venue.)

t See " Madam Liberality," reprinted in "A Great Emergency,
and other Tales." (Messrs. Bell & Sons.) "In her story of
' Madam Liberality,' " says Miss Gatty in her sketch of her sister's
life, "Mrs. Ewing certainly drew a picture of her own character
that can never be surpassed. She did this quite unintentionally, I
know,"

AfRS. E WING'S LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 35

cot," " Laetus Sorte Mea " * (this last better known
by its second but, to my thinking, far less touching
and characteristic title of " The Story of a Short
Life ''), and others of her works have had their
beauties already pointed out in many quarters and
by the ablest hands. Her exquisitely quaint,
humorous, and yet often pathetic verses for
children, with their lovely illustrations, are —
surely? — in every nursery.f And the sketch of
herself recently given to the public by her sister,
Miss Gatty, is perfect of its kind. Its absolute
simplicity, notwithstanding its almost too careful
avoidance of anything approaching to sisterly
partiality, brings her before us in a way that
nothing else can ever do. More may be written
of her in the future by those who had the best
opportunities of knowing her intimately and
thoroughly, and who, as friends only, and not

* " Works by Juliana Iloralia Ewing." Shilling Series.
(S.r.C.K.)

t " Verse Books for Children," written by Juliana H. Ewing,
depicted by R. Andre, First and Second Series, u. each (S.P.C.K.),
and " Poems of Child Life and Country Life," First and Second
Series, \s. each (S.P.C.K.).

36 STUDIES AND STORIES,

relations, may feel able to let their enthusiasm
have full vent, but in one not so privileged it
would be presumption to say more.

Setting aside Mrs. Ewing's best-known books,
there exists a little group of her works — some
half-dozen reprints of stories originally written for
Aunt Judy s Alagaziiic* — which, though as to bulk
the most important of her works, and as to finish
scarcely inferior to the three I have referred to,
are nevertheless very much less well known. And
with regard to several of these, the only cause of
reproach which (by juvenile readers especially)
can be brought against "Jackanapes" and "The
Story of a Short Life " — namely, " that they end
so dreadfully sadly " — does not exist. And here,
in passing, I may touch on another point much
discussed in connection with Mrs. Ewing's books.
They are, say some, more about than for children.
There would be truth in this criticism were one
to accept the doctrine that children's literature

* "Mrs. Ewing's Topular Tales." Six volumes. Uniform
editionj 5^. per volume. Chenp edition, i.e. (!\Iessrs, Eell &
Sons.)

J//;S. ElVLKG'S LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 2,7

must be limited to children's comprehension.
But with this it is possible to disagree.

Books for children should be written in such
a style and in such language that the full atten-
tion and interest of the young readers should be
at once enlisted and maintained to the end with-
out any demand for mental straining or undue
intellectual effort. But that everything in a child's
book should be of a nature to be at once full}-
understood b)' the child would surely be an un-
necessary lowering of the art of writing for
children to a mere catering for their amusement
ur the whiling away of an idle hour. Suggestion
in the very faintest degree of aught not only that
they should not, but even that they uccd not yet
know cannot of course be avoided with too ex-
cpiisite a scrupulousness. But — a very different
thing this from tales with a visible purpose of
instruction, intellectual or moral, which are happil\-
a bygone fashion — suggestion, on the other hand,
of the infinity of "worlds not realized;" of beaut}- ;
of poetry ; of scientific achievements ; of, even, the
moral and spiritual problems which sooner or later

38 STUDIES AND STORIES.

in its career each soul must disentangle for itself,
seems to me one of the most powerful levers for
good which we can use with our ever and rapidly
changing audience. It is but for a very short
time that children, as such, can be influenced by
books specially written for them ; but a very few
years during which last the quick receptiveness,
the malleability, above all the delightful trustful-
ness common, one would fain hope, in a greater
or less degree to all children. " A wicked book,"
to quote one of Mrs. Ewing's favourite proverbs,
" is all the wickeder because it can never repent."
Surely, taking into consideration the short but
tremendous susceptibility of childhood, equally
strong condemnation should be given to a book
not even worse than unwise or injudicious, if
written for the young. For the evil such may
do can never be undone.

Judged even by the severest standard, in no
respect can Mrs. Ewing's books be found wanting,
even though it may be allowed that they are
sometimes " beyond " an average child's full com-
prehension ; they never fail to attract and interest

MRS. ElVINCS LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 39

and impress — and, in the words of a youthful critic,
" to give us nice thinkings afterwards."

The first, in order of date, of the six volumes
comprising the series in question is a story pub-
lished nearly twenty years ago, which appeared
originally as a serial in Ainit Judys Magazine,
entitled, " ]\Irs. Overthcway's Remembrances." *

This was i\Irs. Ewing's first work of impor-
tance ; and, though in some few particulars it
betrays a less experienced hand than her later
stories, it is full of charm and merit. It is more
particularly written for girls, and well adapted
for that indefinite age, the despair of mothers
and governesses, when maidens begin to look
down u[)on " regular children's stories," and
" novels " are as yet forbidden. There is, per-
haps, in the first " remembrance " especially, " Mrs.
Moss," a little too much of the old lady's reflec-
tions and philosophy, for which, by-the-by, she
herself prettily apologizes — " ' Old people become
prosy, my dear. They love to linger over little

* "Mrs. Ovoilheway's Remembrances." Tiist of llic series of
Ewing's •' ropuhr Talcs." (Messr?. Cell ^*v: Sons.)

40 STUDIES AND STORIES

remembrances of youth, and to recall the good
counsels of voices long silent. But I must not
put you to sleep a second time ' " — but the
groundwork of the whole, the thread on which
" Mrs. Overtheway's " reminiscences are strung,
is charming. The opening description of the
lonely " Ida," gazing out of her nursery win-
dow at *' the green gate, that shut with a click,"
through which, up three white steps, lived the
little old lady "over the way," with whom
in the first place the little girl falls in love as
a sort of fairy-godmother personage, to know her
afterwards as a real friend, would entice any child
to read further. The story, too, has the merit oi
a happy ending. There is, of course, as there
could not but be, a great deal of pathos in the
old lady's recollections of her youth — "' If you will
ask an old woman like me the further history of
the people she knew in her youth,' said Mrs.
Overtheway, smiling, ' you must expect to hear of
many deaths,' " but, " * it is right and natural that
death should be sad in your eyes, my child, and
I will not make a tragedy of my story ' "—

MRS. EiVINCS LESS IVELL-KXOIVN BOOK'S. 4 1

but this is brightened by touches of the humour
never long absent from Mrs. Ewing's pages, and
which she knew so perfectly how to introduce.
To give but one instance, which occurs in the
story of *' The Snoring Ghosts," that of the two
little sisters away from home for the first time,
on a visit on their own account, who, terrified by
mysterious sounds in the middle of the night,
take refuge with an amiable but very sleepy
neighbour, a " grown-up "' )-oung lady whose bed-
room was next to theirs.

" In the bed reposed — not Bedford" (the maid;
" but our friend Kate, fast asleep, with one arm
over the bed-clothes, and her long red hair in a
l)igtail streaming over the pillow." . . . She \\akes
at last and listens to the tale of their woes. " ' You
[)oor children,' she said. ' I'm so sleep)-. I cannot
get up and go after the ghost now ; besides, one
might meet somebody. But you may get into
bed if you like ; there's plenty of room, and nothing
to frighten you.'

" In we both crept, most willingl)-. She gave
us the long tail of her hair, and said, 'If you

42 STUDIES AND STORIES.

want me, pull. But go to sleep if you can ! ' —
and before she had well finished the sentence
her eyes closed once more. In such good com-
pany a snoring ghost seemed a thing hardly to
be realized. We held the long plait between us,
and, clinging to it as drowning men to a rope,
we soon slept also."

Except in the last story, " Kergvelen's Land,"
which owes its description of albatross life to
Mrs. Ewing's husband — like herself, "a very
accurate observer of Nature " — and which reminds
one much of Hans Andersen, " Mrs. Overtheway's
Remembrances " brings out less than others of
her stories one strong feature of Mrs. Ewing's
character, which she doubtless inherited from her
mother — her love of animals. But a touch here
and there reveals it. What can give a more
perfect picture of an owlet than this ? — " a shy,
soft, lovely, shadow- tinted creature, who felt
like an impalpable mass of fluff, utterly re-
fused to be kissed, and went savagely blinking
back into his spout at the earliest possible oppor-
tunity."

MRS. E WING'S LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 43

"A Flat Iron for a Farthing,"* the second of
this series, appeared in 1870. As is the case in
" Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances," the saddest
part of the narrative — and this is most touch-
ingly told — comes at the beginning. Like the
former book, too, it ends happily. It is an auto-
biography— a favourite form of writing with Mrs.
Ewing — a fact which inclines one to demur to
the statement that children, as a rule, object to
it. " I can't bear ' I ' stories," a tiny damsel is
reported to have said. ]\Irs. Ewing's predilection
for the use of the first person arose probably from
her instinct of completely identifying herself with
her characters. No writer for children has dis-
carded so thoroughly as she, in spirit and in deed,
the old and altogether false system (which chil-
dren themselves are the first to detect and resent)
of writing down to young readers. " A Flat Iron
for a Farthing ; or, Some Passages in the Life
of an Only Son," is the history, as its second

'* "'A Flat Iron for a Farthing ; or, Some Pass.ages in the Life
of an Only Son.' Mrs. Ewing's "Popular Tales." (Messrs. Bell
& Sons.)

44 STUDIES AS^D STORIES.

title tells, related by himself, of a boy from infancy
to manhood. And it is no small triumph on Mrs.
Ewing's part that, in spite of her hero's great
originality and quaintness of character, and of
his being represented as the only child of a very
wealthy man, she has succeeded in depicting
him as neither morbid nor a prig. Some of the
scenes are very amusing ; that of the little fellow
" dropping in " on a neighbour " to exchange the
weather and pass the time like," as he himself ex-
presses it, is delightfully funn)-. A dear dog, too,
figures in this story— a dog who, " fortunately
for me, simply went with my humour without
being particular as to the reason of it, like the
tenderest of women," and ran sixty miles in one
day rather than be separated from his master —
an incident which we are sure Mrs. Ewing would
not have given unless it had been a true one.
There is much earnest, though not didactic,
writing in this book, many "serious" passages
of great beauty. And the childish " idyll," as
one is tempted to call it, of the " Flat Iron " itself,
which ends in the most happily old-fashioned

M/^S. ElVING'S LESS IVELL-KNOIVX BOOKS. 45

romance, is too delicately lovely and original to
spoil by quotations.

"Six to Sixteen," * the next on our list, is also
an autobiograph}'. This story is specially for
girls. But scarcely for girls as young as the
ages naturally suggested by its title. For girls
from sixteen upwards, it is excellent reading,
though perhaps some parts of the book — those,
in particular, describing the woes of the mis-
managed and hypochondriacal Matilda and the
defects of Miss Mulberry's school— would be
more profitable for parents, or those in charge
of young people, than for the young people them-
selves. ]Uit nothing can be more invigorating
or bracing in tone than the description of the
heroine's life with the healthy, merry, quaint, and
yet cultivated children of the moorland rector)-.
There is a great deal of uncommon "common-
sense" and true wisdom in the mother's warnings
to the girls on their fust little venture into the
world on their own account. Warnings — "against

* " Six to Sixleen : a .Story for Girls.'' Mrs. Kwing's " Popiilar
Tales." (Messrs. G. Pcll & Sons.)

4.6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

despising interests that happen not to be ours,
or graces which we have chosen to neglect, against
the danger of satire, against the love or the fear
of being thought singular, and, above all, against
the petty pride of clique.

" ' I do not know which is the worst,' I remember
her saying, *a religious clique, an intellectual
clique, a fashionable clique, a moneyed clique,
or a family clique. And I have seen them all.' "
Mrs. Ewing's dogs are in great force in this story.
There is a whole posse of them at the rectory
— "the dear boys," as they are called, to dis-
tinguish them from " the boys," the cojuviuns
des martyrs^ the merely human sons of the
house. And the prim French lady's exclamation
of " Menage extraordinaire ! " when, " on the first
night of her arrival, the customary civility was
paid her of offering her a dog to sleep on her
bed," is not perhaps altogether to be wondered at.

"Jan of the Windmill : a Story of the Plains," *
first appeared as a serial in Avnt Jndys Maga-

* "Jan of the Windmill: a Story of the Plains."' Mrs. Ewing's
" Popular Tales." (Messrs. G. Bell & Sons.)

JfJ!S. EWINGS LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 47

,c/W, in 1872, under the title of "The Miller's
Thumb."

It is a question with many who are thoroughly
conversant with Mrs. Ewing's books if this story
should not take rank among them as the very
best. As a work of art, there is much to be said
in favour of its doing so, though some of its
greatest merits — its originality, the novelty of its
scenery, its almost overflowing richness of material
of all kinds — militate against its ever attaining
to the popularity of " Jackanapes " or the " Short
Life," in which the interest is absorbed in the
one principal figure — a figure in both instances
masterly in its beauty and in its power of appeal
to our tenderest sympathies.

With children of both sexes and of varying
ages, "Jan" is a great favourite, even though — •
and this fact surely but increases tlieir real value
— like almost all Mrs. Ewing's writings, it contains
much which only ripened judgment and matured
taste can fully appreciate.

The central idea is the growth, amidst, in some
respects, peculiarly matter-of-fact surroundings.

48 STUDIES AND STORIES.

of an "artist nature," That this nature in varying
degrees is less rare in childhood than is commonly
supposed, even though the after-life may prevent
its development when it is not sturdy enough to
resist, Mrs. Ewing is evidently strongly inclined
to think.

*' That the healthy, careless, rough-and-ready
type is the one to encourage, many will agree
who cannot agree that it is universal or even much
the most common." And if in this opinion our
author errs, it must be allowed she does so in the
good company of Wordsworth, Gray, and others.

This central idea we are never allowed to forget.
Through all his experiences — as "peg-minder,"
as miller's boy, as "screever" in the London
streets — Jan, with the golden hair and sloe-black
eyes, stands out among the crowd of characters
as a being apart, even when himself the most
simple and unconscious. The plot of the story
is well worked out, though the latter part gives
one the feeling of being compressed into too small
space. There are some very happy touches,
which misrht have been made more of. The

MRS. EWJNCPS LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 49

character of Lady Adelaide, and her relations
to the stepson whose existence she had never
suspected, we should have liked to hear about
in more detail. Mrs. Ewing's wonderful famili-
arity with "wind-miller" life and with the Wilt-
shire dialect is accounted for by Miss GatLy in
her notice of this story.* But the manner in
which she knew how to turn to account the
assistance she received in this case, as well as
that given her by Major Ewing and various
friends in other stories, is beyond all praise.

The children and the beasts in " Jan " are all
delightful. The opening description of gentle
Abel's adoption of his baby foster-brother, the
meeting in the woods of the big-bodied and big-
hearted child " Amabel " with the little hero, the
tragic account of the fever in the village and
Abel's death, arc all perfect in their different
ways. And the animals are particularly interest-
ing. There are the pigs, of whom, we are told,
" the pertness, the liveliness, the humour, the love

* See "Juliana Iloialia Ewing and Iicv Books." By Miss
Oatty. {S.P.C.K., Northumberland Avenue.)

B

50 STUDIES AND STORIES.

of mischief, the fiendish ingenuity and perversity,
can be fully known to the careworn pig-mindcr
only;" and the dignified mongrel, " Rufus," with
the ''large, level eyebrows," " intellectual forehead,
and very long, Vandykish nose, and the curly
ears, which fell like a well=dressed peruke on each
side of his face, giving him an air of disinherited
royalty,'' who, on first meeting Jan, "smelt him
exhaustively, and, excepting a slight odour of
being acquainted with cats, to whom Rufus ob-
jected, decided that he smelt well ; '' and the
brutal pedlar's old white horse, " with protuberant
bones quivering beneath the skin ; " yet with that
" nobility of spirit " — through all his troubles —
" which comes of a good stock " — the horse which
Amabel rescued, and then persisted in curry-
combing with her mamma's "best tortoiseshell
comb ! " They are very fascinating, all of them.
And perhaps there is no prettier, or funnier, or
more pathetic scene than that where Jan "strikes"
as "pig-minder" when he finds that his pet pig
is destined to be slaughtered.

" ' I axed him not to kill the little black 'un with

J/RS. ElVLVCS LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 5 I

the white spot on his car.' And the tears flowed
copiously down Jan's cheeks, while Rufus looked
abjectly distressed. ' 'Twould follow me any-
where.' ' I tellcd him to find another boy to mind
his pegs, for I couldn't look 'un in the face now,
and know 'twas to be killed next month — not
that one with the white spot on his ear. It do
be such a very nice peg.' "

"We and the World; a Book for Boys,"*
sliould, by right of its date, come last of the series.
But, for convenience!, sake, it may be noticed before
the four shorter stories which, bound together,
make the fifth volume. " We and the World "
is emphatically "a book for boys" — a very spirited
and exciting tale of adventure, so excellently told,
so graphic and life-like that many a boy finds it
difficult to believe it to be the work of a woman,
na\', more, of a [peculiarly woman-like woman,
whose delicate health debarred her from aii}'
unusual physical exertion, or, notwithstanding
the travels by land and sea which she used for

* " Wc and the World: a Book for Boys." Mrs. E\ving'>
" I'upular Talcs." (Messrs. G. Bell & Sons.)

52 STUDIES AND STORIES.

such good purpose, from personal experience of
the " adventures " which sometimes fall to the lot
of her sex. These remarks, however, apply more
to the second half of the story. The first recalls
Mrs, Ewing in many of her other domestic tales.
Nothing can be more characteristic than her
descriptions of her favourite " North-country "
homes and lives ; in these, often a word or two
brings before us a complete picture. The follow-
ing passage—" The long, sweet faces of the plough-
horses as they turned in the furrows were as
familiar to us as the faces of any other labourers
in our father's fields " — is a photograph, or better
than a photograph, in itself. And even in this
first part we marvel how Mrs. Ewing could
describe, "so like a man," in boy parlance, the
skating scene on the mill-dam, the rescue of the
half-drowned peasant, etc. Later in the book,
when we come to "Jack's" running away (for
which, by-the-by, he is let off with unusual
leniency?), his experiences as a stowaway, his
hardships at sea, and all his other adventures, this
power of Mrs. Etving's, of depicting with perfect

JfJ^S. E WINGS LESS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 53

accuracy, of reproducing to the life, scenes and
incidents which it was impossible for her to have
had personal knowledge of, fills the reader with
ever-increasing astonishment. " She was greatly-
aided," we are told, " by two friends in her descrip-
tion of the scenery in ' We,' such as the vivid
account of Bermuda and the waterspout in chapter
xi., and that of the fire at Demerara in chapter xii.,
and she owed to the same kind helpers also the
accuracy of her nautical phrases and her Irish
dialect," * but even this fails to explain the im-
pression of perfect " at home-ness '' in her subjects.
One has to fall back on that strange, though some-
times disputed, " clairvoyance of genius," aided
in Mrs, Swing's case by her enormous power of
sympathy, as the solution of the problem. It
brings to mind the marvellous correctness with
which, in a recent novel, the author, who at the
time he wrote it had never left England, describes
the unique observances attending the election of
a Pope at Rome, a description which, in the words

* See p. 62 of "Juliana llorali.i Ewing ami her Books." By
Miss GaUy. (S.P.C.K.)

54 STUDIES AND STORIES,

of one in past years present on one of these rare
occasions, " could not have been more perfect had
its author been one of the cardinals themselves."

One chapter of " We and the World," the tenth,
gives a painfully graphic account of that fearful
thing— nowadays, we trust, scarcely to be met
with — a really bad boys'-school. The description
must have been founded on fact, otherwise Mrs.
Ewing would not have inserted it. But that she
did so with intention and deliberation is evident.
And its introduction leads to much wise and
thoughtful remark on a subject which as yet is
perhaps scarcely sufficiently considered in the
education of our children, boys especially — that
of cruelty. For more of this terrible "survival "
of our lowest nature still exists among us, in all
classes, than we like to allow.

" Man, as man," says our author, " is no more
to be trusted with unchecked power than hitherto."
" No light can be too fierce to beat upon and
purify every spot where the weak arc committed
to the tender mercies of the consciences of the
stroncr."

J/J^S. EJV/yCS ZJtSS WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. 55

It is a question if the first symptoms of a pro-
pensity to cruelty arc checked as promptly as they
should be, " Extenuating circumstances " are in
such a case accepted by many a father who would
refuse to take into consideration auc^ht but the
bare fact were his .son accused of falsehood or
cowardliness. Vet though, to quote Mrs. Ewing
again, " cruelty may come of ignorance, bad tra-
dition, and uncultured sympathies," it is very rarely
well to condone it. Our English ideas as to
iionour and truthfulness arc, as regards bo}'hood
at least, in most respects rigorous, if rough ; it is
seldom with us that a child's falsehood is dealt
with other than summarily. Yet there are man)'
degrees of falsehood. There is the so-called
"storytelling," often the most innocent " roman-
cing" of very young or imaginative children,
which, while explained and confined to its true
domain, should never be punished ; there is the
hasty falsehood born of fear — a momcntarj- im-
pulse of self-defence of an essentially truthful
child ; there is even sometimes, still more cniT-
fully to be dealt with, the deliberate lie induced

56 STUDIES AND STORIES.

by the bewilderment of a painful crisis where truth
and honour seem to clash. But cruelty, inten-
tional and habitual, can be shaded away by no
considerations of this kind. It is inhuman, and
as such should be regarded if the cruel boy is not
to run the risk of developing into that monster in
human form, " a man possessed by the passion of
cruelty."

" A Great P2mergency, and other Tales," * — the
latter consisting of "A Very Ill-tempered Family,"
" Our Field," and last, but far from least, " Madam
Liberality " — is the title of the fifth volume. All
of these appeared first in Aunt Judy's Magazine
in the }'ears between 1872 and 1877. The first
story, though written previously to "We and the
World," is in a sense a pretty parody on the bond
fide hardships and adventures of the real runaways
in the other story. It is full of humour, and the
closing scene, where the heroic little sister and
the lame brother save " Baby Cecil " from burning
to death, is beautiful. It contains, too, some

* " A Great Emergency, and other Tales." Mrs. Ewing's
" Popular Tales." (Messrs. G. Bell & Sons.)

MRS. ElVLVGS LESS WELL-KXOWN BOOKS. ^7

wise hints on school-life which, if attended to,
might save some small people much trouble and
mortification.

"A Very Ill-tcmpcrcd Family" is, as some
families who do not think themselves "so very
ill-tempered" might testify, painfully true to life.
It ends satisfactorily, however ; for the sorely
needed lesson is learnt, and well learnt. But
the gems of this volume are the two sketches,
"Our Field," and "Madam Liberality." Nothing
sweeter surely was ever written than the former.
It reads as if jotted down by some unseen hearer
of the children's thoughts and talks ; one sym-
pathizes in their innocent pleasures ; one could
almost cry with anxiety about how " Peronet,"
the dog's, tax is to be paid. All through it
reminds one of a freshly gathered bunch of wild-
flowers, and brings before us almost better than
anything she ever wrote how Mrs. Ewing loved
such things — children, and " beasts," and flowers
— loved and understood them.

"The sun shone still, but it shone low down,
and made such splendid shadows that we all

58 STUDIES AND STORIES.

walked about with grey giants at our feet ; and
it made the bright green of the grass and the
cowslips down below, and the tops of the hedge,
and Sandy's hair, and everything in the sun
and the mist behind the elder-bush, which was
out of the sun, so yellow — so very yellow-
that just for a minute I really believed about
Sandy's god-mother, and thought it was a story
come true, and that everything was turning into
gold.

" But it was only for a minute ; of course I
know that fairly-tales arc not true. But it was
a lovely field. . . ."

The last story, " Madam Liberality," in the light
which Mrs. Ewing's sister has lately thrown upon
it, one touches with a reverent hand. The un-
conscious revelation of the writer's own character
that it contains silences all criticism, transforms
our admiration even into tender sympathy. Yet
independently of this knowledge, the little story
is infinitely touching, and of its kind a c]icf-d\vuvre.
The great-hearted, bravc-spiritcd, fragile-bodied
little rnaiden, with whom "a little hope" went

MRS. E WING'S LESS WELL-KXOWN BOOKS. 59

such a very " long way ; " so sensitive that on one
occasion, in a toy-shop, when she is misunder-
stood by the shopman, who, hearing her speaking
to herself, imagines she means to buy, her agony
is almost indescribable —

"Madam Liberality hoped it was a dream, but,
having pinched herself, she found it was not ''—
yet so courageous that at all costs she tells the
truth.

" ' I don't want anything, thank you,' said she ;
* at least I mean I have no money. I was only
counting the things I would get'" (for her brothers
and sisters) "'if I had.'" This is a picture one
cannot easily forget.

And the scene where, after all her efforts and
self-sacrifice, her ill-luck still pursues her, and,
obliged to give up hopes of her poor little "sur-
prise," her Christmas-tree for the others, she finds
it at last too much for her — "impossible to hold
out any longer, she at last broke down and
poured out all her woes " — it is very difficult
indeed to read without tears,

T?esides the six volumes we have now noticed,

6o STUDIES AND STORIES.

a seventh will soon be added to this series.* This
will contain six of Mrs. Ewing's earliest stories
and two of her later. The first of these, "Mel-
chior's Dream," written so long ago as 1861, is
one of the best of what may be called her sketches
of family life. Though not written too visibly to
" point a moral," it contains a beautifully expressed
lesson. The other stories — among them one
called "The Viscount's Friend," of which the
scene is laid in the first French Revolution — are
all tender in tone, and, for so young a writer as
Mrs. Ewing then was, marvellously finished in
style. The two last sketches, "A Bad Habit"
and " A Happy Family," written respectively in
1877 and 1883, are excellent.

In the earlier stories there is, naturally, less of
the remarkable "many-sidedness" of insight and
sympathy nowhere more shown than in two
stories which, though not making part of the
series now under review, I cannot but notice in
passing as pre-eminently typical of Mrs. Ewing.

* " Melchior's Dream, and Other Tales." Mrs. Ewing's
" Popular Tales," (Messrs. G. Bell & Sons.)

MRS. EJVIXG'S LESS WELL-KXOWN BOOK'S. 6 1

These arc the exquisite stoi')', " Brothers of Pity," *
where, though one of a large family, she com-
pletely identifies herself with the " only child "
of whom she writes ; and *' Father Hedgehog and
his Neighbours," t in which the description of
gipsy life, the peculiarities of gipsy talk, are as
perfect as if our author had spent months among
the strange people of whom she writes. In her
earlier stories, too, the flashes of humour are less
frequent, as indeed is to be expected. For in a
sound and healthy — in other words, a faithful and
hopeful — nature, true humour ripens and mellows
w ith age and experience ; it is only in poorer
soil that it degenerates into cynicism.

In this particular, as in others throughout the
writings of Mrs. Ewing, notwithstanding the entire
and almost unprecedented absence of any approach
to egotism, one feels the closeness of herself : her
books are the true exponents of her pure and
beautiful nature. The key-note of both was

* "Biothcrs of Pity, and Oilier Talca of Beasts and Men."
(S.r.C K.)

t "Father Hedgehog and his Neighbours." Sec '* Biolhcis of
I'ity, and Other Tales." (S.r.C.K.)

62 STUDIES AND STORIES.

sympathy. To this all who knew her can testify.
I myself can speak to her ever ready interest in
the work of others lying along similar paths to
her own.

Yet more, this sympathy was stimulated and
vivified by what was perhaps her strongest cha-
racteristic — her almost boundless trust in her
fellow-creatures— a trust which, like " IMadam
Liberality's " " little white face and undaunted
spirit, bobbed up again as leady and hopeful as
ever" after each disappointment or even ''apparent
failure." And to doubt the greatness of the
power for good of this beautiful hopefulness of
hers would surely ill become either those who
knew Juliana Ewing in her life or who have to
thank her for the books she has bequeathed to
their children— and to themselves.

( C3 )

J'RIXCBSS J CI::- J IE ART.

A 1 AlRV-TALi:.

In" the olden tiiiies there lived a King who was
worthy of tlie name. He loved his people, and
his people loved him in return. His kingdom
must have been large ; at least it appears to be
beyond doubt that it extended a good way in
different directions, for it was called the Kingdom
of the Four Orts, which, of course, as everybody
knows, means that he had possessions north,
south, cast, and west.

It was not so large, however, but that he was
able to manage it well for himself — that is to
say, with certain help which I will tell you of.
A year never passed without his visiting ever}-
part of his dominions and inquiring for himself
into the affairs of his subjects. Perhaps — who
Can say? — the world was not so big in those

64 STUDIES AND STORIES.

days ; doubtless, however that may have been,
there was not so many folk living on it.

Many things were different in those times : many
things existed which nowadays would be thought
strange and incredible. Human beings knew much
more than they do now about the other dwellers
on the earth. For instance, it was no uncommon
case to find learned men who were able to con-
verse with animals quite as well as with each
other. Fairies, of course, were often visible to
mortal eyes, and it was considered quite natural
that they should interfere for good — sometimes,
perhaps, for evil ; as to that I cannot say — in
human affairs. And good King Brave-Heart
was especially favoured in this way. For the
help which, as I said, was his in governing his
people was that of four very wise counsellors
indeed — the four fairies of the North and the
South, the East and the West.

These sisters were very beautiful as well as
very wise. Though older than the world itself,
they ..always looked young. They were very
much attached to each other, though they seldom

rRhVCESS ICE- HE ART. 6$

met, and it must be confessed that sometimes on
such occasions there were stormy scenes, though
they made it up afterwards. And the advice
they gave was always to be relied on.

Now, King Brave-Heart was married. His wife
was young and charming, and devotedly fond of
him. But she was of a rather jealous and exact-
ing disposition, and she had been much spoilt
in her youth at her own home. She was sweet
and loving, however, which makes up for a good
deal, and always ready to take part in any scheme
for the good of their people, provided it did not
separate her from her husband.

They had no children, though they had been
married for some years ; but at last there came
the hope of an heir, and the Queen's delight
was unbounded — nor was the King's joy less
than hers.

It was late autumn, or almost winter, when a
great trouble befell the pretty Queen. The
weather had grown suddenly cold, and a few
snowflakes even had fallen before their time. But
Queen Claribel only clapped her hands at the

F

66 STUDIES AND STORIES.

sight, for with the winter she hoped the baby
would come, and she welcomed the signs of its
approach on this account. The King, however,
looked grave, and when the next morning the
ground was all white, the trees and the bushes
covered with silvery foliage, he looked graver
still.

" Something is amiss," he said. " The Fairy of
the North must be on her way, and it is not yet
time for her visit."

And that very afternoon the snow fell again,
more heavily than before, and the frost-wind
whistled down the chimneys and burst open the
doors and windows, and all the palace servants
went hurrying and scurrying about to make great
fires and hang up thick curtains and get everything
in order for the cold season, which they had not
expected so soon.

" It will not last," said the King, quietly. " In a
few days there will be milder weather again." But,
nevertheless, he still looked grave.

And early the next morning, as he was sitting
with the Queen, who was beginning to feel a little

PRINCESS ICE- HE ART. 67

frightened at the continuance of the storm, the
double doors of her boudoir suddenly flew open,
an icy blast filled the room, and a tall, white-
shrouded figure stood before them.

" I have come to fetch you, Bravc-I leart," she
said abruptly. "You are wanted, sorely wanted,
in my part of the world. The people are starving :
the season has been a poor one, and there has
been bad faith. Some few powerful men have
bought up the grain, which was already scarce,
and refuse to let the poor folk have it. Nothing
will save their lives or prevent sad suffering but
your own immediate presence. Are you ready?
You must have seen I was coming."

She threw off her mantle as she spoke and
sank on to a couch. Strong as she was, she
seemed tired with the rate at which she had
travelled, and the warm air of the room was
oppressive to her. Her clear, beautiful features
looked harassed ; her grey eyes full of anxiety.
For the moment she took no notice of the
Queen.

" Are you ready ? " she repeated.

68 STUDIES AND STORIES.

" Yes, I am ready," said Brave-Heart, as he
rose to his feet.

But the Queen threw herself upon him, with
bitter crying and reproaches. Would he leave
Jier, and at such a time, a prey to all kinds of
terrible anxiety? Then she turned to the fairy
and upbraided her in unmeasured language. But
the spirit of the North glanced at her with calm
pity.

" Poor child ! " she said. " I had almost for-
gotten you. The sights I have seen of late have
been so terrible that they absorb me. Take
courage, Claribel ! Show yourself a Queen.
Think of the suffering mothers and the little
ones whom your husband hastens to aid. All
will be well with you, believe me. But you, too,
must be brave and unselfish."

It was no use. All she said but made the
Queen more indignant. She would scarcely bid
her husband farewell : she turned her back to
the fairy with undignified petulance.

" Foolish child," said the Northern spirit. " She
will learn better some day."

PRINCESS ICE-HEART. 69

' Then she gave all her attention to the mattcr
she had come about, explaining to the King as
they journeyed, exactly the measures he must
take and the difficulties to be overcome. But
though the King had the greatest faith in her
advice, and never doubted that it was his duty
to obey, his heart was sore, as you can under-
stand.

Things turned out as he had said. The severe
weather disappeared again as if by magic, and
some weeks of unusually mild days followed. And
when the winter did set in for good at last, it
was with no great rigour. From time to time
news reached the palace of the King's welfare.
The tidings were cheering. His presence w^as
effecting all that the fairy had hoped.

So Queen Claribcl ought to have been happy.
But she was determined not to be. She did
nothing but cry and abuse the fairy, declaring
that she would never see her dear Brave-Heart
again, and that if ever her baby came she was
sure it would not live, or that there would be
something dreadful the matter with it.

yo STUDIES AND STORIES.

" It is not fair," she kept saying, " it is a shame
that I should suffer so."

And even when on Christmas Eve a beautiful
little girl was born, as pretty and lively and
healthy as could be wished, and even though
the next day brought the announcement of the
King's immediate return, Claribel still nursed her
resentment, though in the end it came to be
directed entirely against the fairy. For when
she saw Brave-Heart again, his tender affection
and his delight in his little daughter made it
impossible for her not to *' forgive him," as she
expressed it, though she could not take any
interest in his accounts of his visit to the north
and all he had been able to do there.

A great feast was arranged in honour of the
christening of the little Princess. All the grand
people of the neighbourhood were bidden to
it, nor, you may be sure, did the good King
forget the poorer folk. The four fairies were in-
vited, for it was a matter of course that they
should be the baby's godmothers. And though
the Queen would gladly have excluded the

PRINCESS ICE- HE ART. 7 1

Northern fairy, she dared not even hint at such
a thing.

But she resolved in her own mind to do all in
her power to show the fairy that she was not
welcome.

On such occasions, when human beings were
honoured by the presence of fairy visitors, these
distinguished guests were naturally given pre-
cedence of all others, otherwise very certainly they
would never have come again. Even among
fairies themselves there are ranks and formalities,
and the Queen well knew that the first place was
due to the Northern spirit. But she gave instruc-
tions that this rule should be departed from, and
the Snow fairy, as she was sometimes called, found
herself placed at the King's left hand, separated
from him by her sister of the West, instead of
next to him on the right, which seat, on the
contrary,, was occupied by the fairy of the
South. She glanced round her calmly, but took
no notice ; and the King, imagining that by her
own choice perhaps, she had chosen the unusual
position, made no remark. And the feast pro-

yi STUDIES AND STORIES.

gressed with the accustomed splendour and
rejoicing.

But at the end, when the moment arrived at
which the four godmothers were expected to state
their gifts to the baby, the Queen's spite could be
no longer concealed.

"I request," she exclaimed, "that for reasons
well known to herself, to the King, and to myself,
the Northern fairy's gift may be the last in order
instead of the first."

The King started and grew pale. The beautiful,
soft-voiced fairy of the South, in her glowing
golden draperies, would fain have held back, for
her affection for her sterner sister was largely
mingled with awe. But the Snow fairy signed to
her imperiously to speak.

" I bestow upon the Princess Sweet-Heart," she
said, half trembling, " the gift of great beauty."

"And I," said the spirit of the East, who came
next, her red robes falling majestically around her,
her dark hair lying smoothly in its thick masses on
her broad, low forehead, " I give her great powers
of intellect and intelligence."

PRINCESS ICE-HEART. 73

" And I," said the Western fairy, with a bright,
breezy flutter of her sea-green garments, "health —
perfect health and strength of body — as my gift
to the pretty child."

"And you," said the Queen bitterly, "you,
cold-hearted fairy, who have done your best to
kill me with misery, who came between my hus-
band and mc, making him neglect me as he
never would have done but for your influence —
what will yoH give my child ? Will you do some-
thing to make amends for the suffering you
caused ? I would rather my pretty baby were
dead than that she lived to endure what I have
of late endured."

" Life and death are not mine to bestow or to
withhold," said the Northern spirit calmly, as she
drew her white garments more closely round her
with a majestic air. " So your rash words, foolish
woman, fortunately for you all, cannot touch the
child. But something — much — I can do, and I
will. She shall not know the suffering you dread
for her with so cowardly a fear. She shall be
what you choose to fancy / am. And instead of

74 STUDIES AND STORIES.

the name you have given her, she shall be known
for what she is — Princess Ice-Heart."

She turned to go, but the King on one hand,
her three sisters on the other, started forward to
detain her,

" Have pity ! " exclaimed the former.

" Sister, bethink you," said the latter ; the
Western fairy adding beseechingly, the tears
springing in her blue eyes, which so quickly
changed from bright to sad, "Say something to
soften this hard fate. Undo it you cannot, I know.
Or, at least, allow me to mitigate it if I can."

The Snow fairy stopped ; in truth, she was far
from hard-hearted or remorseless, and already she
was beginning to feel half sorry for what she had
done.

" What would you propose? " she said coldly.

The fairy of the West threw back her auburn
hair with a gesture of impatience.

" I would I knew ! " she said. " 'Tis a hard knot
you have tied, my sister. For that which would
mend the evil wrought seems to me impossible
while the evil exists — the cure and the cessation

PRINCESS ICE-HEART. 75

of tlic disease arc one. How could the heart of
ice be melted till tender feelings warm it, and how
can tender feelings find entrance into a feelinglcss
heart ? Alas ! alas ! I can but predict what
sounds like a mockery of your trouble," she went
on, turning to the King, though indeed by this
time she might have included the Queen in her
sympathy, for Claribel stood, horrified at the result
of her mad resentment, as pale as Brave-Heart
himself. " Hearken ! " and her expressive face,
over which sunshine and showers were wont to
chase each other as on an April day — for such, as
all know, is the nature of the changeful lovable
spirit of the West — for once grew still and statue-
like, while her blue eyes pierced far into the
distance, " The day on which the Princess of the
Icy Heart shall shed a tear, that heart shall melt —
but then only."

The Northern fairy murmured something under
her breath, but what the words were no one heard,
for it was not many that dared stand near to her,
so terribly cold was her presence. The graceful
spirit of the South fluttered her golden locks, and

76 STUDIES AND STORIES.

with a little sigh drew her radiant mantle round
her, and kissed her hand in farewell, while the
thoughtful-eyed, mysterious Eastern fairy linked
her arm in that of her Western sister, and whispered
that the solution of the problem should have her
most earnest study. And the green-robed spirit
tried to smile through her tears in farewell as she
suffered herself to be led away.

So the four strange guests departed ; but their
absence was not followed by the usual outburst of
unconstrained festivity. On the contrary, a sense
of sorrow and dread hung over all who remained,
and before long every one not immediately con-
nected with the palace respectfully but silently
withdrew, leaving the King and Queen to their
mysterious sorrow.

Claribel flew to the baby's cradle. The little
Princess was sleeping soundly ; she looked rosy
and content — a picture of health. Her mother
called eagerly to the King.

" She seems just as usual," she exclaimed.
" Perhaps — oh ; perhaps, after all, I have done no
harm."

PRINCESS ICE- HE ART. yy

For, stranc^c to say, her resentment against the
Northern fairy had died away. She now felt
nothing but shame and regret for her own wild
temper. " Perhaps," she went on, " it was but to
try me, to teach mc a lesson, that the Snow fairy
uttered those terrible words."

Brave-Heart pitied his wife deeply, but he shook
his head.

" I dare not comfort you with any such hopes,"
he said ; " my poor Claribel. The fairy is true —
true as steel — if you could but have trusted her !
Had you seen her, as I have done — full of tenderest
pity for suffering — you could never have so maligned
her."

Claribel did not answer, but her tears dropped
on the baby's face. The little Princess seemed
annoyed by them. She put up her tiny hand, and,
with a fretful expression, brushed them off".

And that very evening the certainty came.

The head-nurse sent for the Queen while she
was undressing the child, and the mother hastened
to the nursery. The attendants were standing
round in the greatest anxiety, for, though the baby

78 STUDIES AND STORIES.

looked quite well otherwise, there was the strangest
coldness over her left side, in the region of the
heart. The skin looked perfectly colourless, and
the soft cambric and still softer flannel of the
finest which had covered the spot, were stiff, as
if they had been exposed to a winter night's
frost.

" Alas ! " exclaimed Claribel ; but that was all.
It was no use sending for doctors — no use doing
anything. Her own delicate hand when she laid
it on the baby's heart was, as it were, blistered
with cold. The next morning she found it covered
with chilblains.

But the baby did not mind. She flourished
amazingly, heart or no heart. She was perfectly
healthy, ate well, slept well, and soon gave signs
of unusual intelligence. She was seldom put out,
but when angry she expressed her feelings by loud
roars and screams, though with never a tear ! At
first this did not seem strange, as no infant sheds
tears during the earliest weeks of its life. But
when she grew to six months old, then to a year,
then to two and three, and was near her fourth

PRINCESS ICE-HEART, 79

birthday without ever crying, it became plain that
the prediction was indeed to be fulfilled.

And the name " Ice-Heart " clung to her. In
spite of all her royal parents* commands to the
contrary, " Princess Ice-Heart" she was called far
and near. It seemed as if people could not help
it. " ' Sweet-Heart ' we cannot name her, for
sweet she is not," was murmured by all who
came in contact with her.

And it was true. Sweet she certainly was not.
She was beautiful and healthy and intelligent, but
she had no feeling. In some ways she gave little
trouble. Her temper, though occasionally violent,
was, as a rule, placid ; she seemed contented in
almost all circumstances. When her good old
nurse died, she remarked coolly that she hoped
her new attendant would dress her hair more be-
comingly. When King Brave-Heart started on
some of his distant journeys, she bade him good-
bye with a smile, observing that if he never came
home again it would be rather amusing, as she
would then reign instead of him ; and when she
saw her mother break into sobs at her unnatural

8o STUDIES AND STORIES.

speech, she stared at her in blank astonish-
ment.

And so things went on till Ice-Heart reached
her seventeenth year. By this time she was, as
regarded her outward appearance, as beautiful as
the fondest of parents could desire ; she was also
exceedingly strong and healthy, and the powers
of her mind were unusual. Her education had
been carefully directed, and she had learnt with
ease and interest. She could speak in several
languages, her paintings were worthy of admira-
tion, as they were skilful and well executed ; she
could play with brilliancy on various instruments.
She had also been taught to sing, but her voice
was metallic and unpleasing. But she could
discuss scientific and philosophical subjects with
the sages of her father's kingdom like one of
themselves.

And besides all this care bestowed upon her
training, no stone had been left unturned in hopes
of awakening in the unfortunate girl some affection
or emotion. Every day the most soul-stirring
poetry was read aloud to her by the greatest elo-

PRINCESS ICE-HEART. 8 1

cutionists, the most exciting and moving dramas
were enacted before her ; she was taken to visit
the poor of the city in their pitiable homes ; she
was encouraged to see sad sights from which most
soft-hearted maidens would instinctively flee. But
all was in vain. She would express interest, and
ask intelligent questions with calm, unmoved
features and dry eyes. Even music, from which
much had been hoped, was powerless to move her
to aught but admiration of the performers' skill
or curiosity as to the construction of their instru-
ments. There was but one peculiarity about her,
which sometimes, though they could not have ex-
plained why, seemed to Ice- Heart's unhappy
parents to hint at some shadowy hope. The sight
of tears was evidently disagreeable to her. More
certainly than anything else did the signs of weep-
ing arouse one of her rare fits of anger — so much
so that now and then, for days together, the poor
Queen dared not come near her child, as tears
were to her a frequent relief from her lifelong
regrets.

So beautiful and wealthy and accomplished a

G

82 STUDIES AND STORIES.

maiden was naturally not without suitors ; and
from this direction, too, at first, Queen Claribel
trusted fondly that cure might come.

" If she could but fall in love," she said, the first
time the idea struck her.

" My poor dear 1 " replied the King, " to see,
you must have eyes ; to love, you must have a
heart."

" But a heart she has," persisted the mother.
" It is only, as it were, asleep — frozen, like the
winter stream which bursts forth again into ever
fresh life and movement with the awaking spring."

So lovers were invited, and lovers came and
were made welcome by the dozen. Lovers of
every description — rich and poor, old and young,
handsome and ugly — so long as they were of pass-
able birth and fair character. King Brave-Heart
was not too particular, in the forlorn hope that
among them one fortunate wight might rouse some
sentiment in the lovely statue he desired to win.
But all in vain. Each prince, or duke, or simple
knight, duly instructed in the sad case, did his
best : one would try poetry, another his lute, a

PRINCESS ICE-IIEART. 83

third sighs and appeals, a fourth, imagining he had
made some way, would attempt the bold stroke of
telling Ice-Heart that unless she could respond to
his adoration he would drown himself. She only
smiled, and begged him to allow her to witness
the performance — she had never seen any one
drown. So, one by one, the troupe of aspirants —
some in disgust, some in strange fear, some in
annoyance — took their departure, preferring a
more ordinary spouse than the bewitched though
beautiful Princess.

And she saw them go with calmness, though, in
one or two cases, she had replied to her parents
that she had no objection to marry Prince So-
and-so, or Count Such-another, if they desired it
— it would be rather agreeable to have a husband
if he gave her plenty of presents and did all she
asked.

" Though a sighing and moaning lover, or a
man who is always twiddling a fiddle or making
verses, I could not stand," she would add con-
temptuously.

So King Brave-Heart thought it best to try no

84 STUDIES AND STORIES.

such experiment. And in future no gentleman
was allowed to present himself except with the
understanding that he alone who should succeed
in making Princess Ice-Heart shed a tear would
be accepted as her betrothed.

This proclamation diminished at once the
number of suitors. Indeed, after one or two
candidates had failed, no more appeared — so well
did it come to be known that the attempt was
hopeless.

And for more than a year Princess Ice-Heart
was left to herself — very much, apparently, to her
satisfaction.

But all this time the mystic sisters were not idle
or forgetful. Several of the aspirants to Ice-
Heart's hand had been chosen by them and con-
veyed to the neighbourhood of the palace by their
intermediacy from remote lands. And among
these, one of the few who had found some slight
favour in the maiden's eyes, was a special protige
of the Western fairy — the young and spirited
Prince Francolin.

He was not one of the sighing or sentimental

PRINCESS ICE-HEART. 85

order of swains ; he was full of life and adventure
and brightness, and his heart was warm and
generous. He admired the beautiful girl, but he
pitied her still more, and this pity was the real
motive which made him yield to the fairy's pro-
posal that he should try again.

" You pleased the poor child," she said, when
she arrived one day at the Prince's home to talk
over her new idea. " You made her smile by your
liveliness and fun. For I was there when you little
knew it. The girl has been overdosed with senti-
mentality and doleful strains. I believe we have
been on a wrong track all this time."

" What do you propose ? " said Francolin,
gravely, for he could be serious enough when
seriousness was called for. " She did not actually
dislike me, but that is the most that can be said ;
and however I may feel for her, however I may
admire her beauty and intelligence, nothing would
induce me to wed a bride who could not return
my affection. Indeed, I could scarcely feel any
for such a one."

"Ah, no! I agree with you entirely," said the

86 STUDIES AND STORIES.

fairy, " But listen — my power is great in some
ways. I am well versed in ordinary enchantment,
and am most willing to employ my utmost skill
for my unfortunate god-daughter." '

She then unfolded to him her scheme, and
obtained his consent to it.

"Now is your time," she said, in conclusion.
" I hear on the best authority that Ice-Heart is
feeling rather dull and bored at present. It is
some time since she has had the variety of a new
suitor, and she will welcome any distraction."

And she proceeded to arrange all the details of
her plan.

So it came to pass that very shortly after the
conversation I have related there was great excite-
ment in the capital city of the kingdom of the
Four Orts. After an interval of more than a
year, a new suitor had at length presented himself
for the hand of the Princess Ice- Heart. Only
the King and Queen received the news with
melancholy indifference.

" He may try as the others have done," said
Brave-Heart to the messenger announcing the

rJRINCESS ICE- 11 EAR!. 8/

arrival of the stranger at the gates, accompanied
by a magnificent retinue ; " but it is useless."
For the poor King was fast losing all hope of his
daughter's case ; he was growing aged and care-
worn before his time.

" Docs he know the terms attached to his accept-
ance .^" inquired the Queen.

Yes, the messenger from the unknown candidate
for the hand of the beautiful Ice-Heart had been
expressly charged to say that the Prince Jocko —
such was the new-comer's name — was fully in-
formed as to all particulars, and prepared to
comply with the conditions.

The Princess's parents smiled somewhat bitterly.
They had no hope, but still they could not forbid
the attempt.

"Prince Jocko?" said the King, "not a very
princelike name. However, it matters little."

A few hours later the royal pair and their
daughter, with all their attendants., in great state
and ceremony, were awaiting their guest. And
soon a blast of trumpets announced his approach.
His retinue was indeed magnificent ; horsemen in

88 STUDIES AND STORIES.

splendid uniforms, followed by a troop of white
mules with negro riders in gorgeous attire, then
musicians, succeeded by the Prince's immediate
attendants, defiled before the great marble steps
in front of the palace, at the summit of which the
King, with the Queen and Princess, was seated in
state.

Ice-Heart clapped her hands.

" 'Tis as good as a show," she said ; " but where
is the Prince ? "

As she said the words the cortege halted. A
litter, with closely drawn curtains, drew up at the
foot of the steps.

" Gracious ! " exclaimed the Princess, " I hope
he's not a molly-coddle ; " but before there was
time to say more the curtains of the litter were
drawn aside, and in another moment an attendant
had lifted out its occupant, who forthwith pro-
ceeded to ascend the steps.

The parents and their daughter stared at each
other and gasped.

Prince Jocko was neither more nor less than a
monkey !

PRINCESS ICE-HEART. 89

But such a monkey as never before had been
seen. He was more comical than words can ex-
press, and when at last he stood before them, and
bowed to the ground, a three-cornered hat in his
hand, his sword sticking straight out behind, his
tail sweeping the ground, the effect was irresistible.
King Brave-Heart turned his head aside. Queen
Claribel smothered her face in her handkerchief.
Princess Ice-Heart opened her pretty mouth wide
and forgot to close it again, while a curious ex-
pression stole into her beautiful eyes.

Was it a trick ?

No ; Prince Jocko proceeded to speak.

He laid his little brown paw on his heart, bowed
again, coughed, sneezed, and finally began an
oration. If his appearance was too funny, his
words and gestures were a hundred times more so.
He rolled his eyes, he declaimed, he posed and
pirouetted like a miniature dancing-master, and
his little cracked voice rose higher and higher as
his own fine words and expressions increased in
eloquence.

And at last a sound — which never before had

90 STUDIES AND STORIES.

been heard, save faintly — made every one start.

The Princess was laughing as if she could no

longer contain herself. Clear, ringing, merry

laughter, which it did one's heart good to hear.

And on she went, laughing ever, till — she flung

herself at her mother's feet, the tears rolling down

her cheeks.

" Oh, mamma ! " she exclaimed, " I never " —

and then she went off again.

But Prince Jocko suddenly grew silent. He
stepped up to Ice-Heart and, respectfully raising
her hand to his lips, gazed earnestly, beseechingly
into her face, his own keen sharp eyes gradually
growing larger and deeper in expression, till they
assumed the pathetic, wistful look of appeal one
often sees in those of a noble dog.

"Ah, Princess !" he murmured.

And Ice-Heart stopped, laughing. She pressed
her hand to her side.

" Father ! mother ! " she cried, " help me ! help
me ! Am I dying t What has happened to me ? "
And, with a strange, long-drawn sigh, she sank
fainting to the ground.

PRINCESS ICE-HEART. 9 1

There was great excitement in the pahice,
hurrying to and fro, fetching of doctors, and much
alarm. But when the Princess had been carried
indoors and laid on a couch, she soon revived.
And who can describe the feelings of the King
and Queen when she turned to them with a
smile such as they had never seen on her face
before.

"Dearest father, dearest mother," she said,
" how I love you ! Those strange warm drops
that filled my eyes seem to have brought new life
to me," and as the Queen passed her arm round
the maiden she felt no chill of cold such as used
to thrill her with misery every time she embraced
her child.

" Sweet-Heart ! my own Sweet-Heart ! " she
whispered.

And the Princess whispered back, " Yes, call me
by that name always."

All was rejoicing when the wonderful news of
the miraculous cure spread through the palace
and the city. But still the parents' hearts were

92 STUDIES AND STORIES.

sore, for was not the King's word pledged that
his daughter should marry him who had effected
this happy change ? And this was no other than
Jocko, the monkey !

The Prince had disappeared at the moment
that Ice-Heart fainted, and now with his retinue
he was encamped outside the walls. All sorts of
ideas occurred to the King.

" I cannot break my word," he said, " but we
might try to persuade the little monster to release
me from it."

But the Princess would not hear of this.

" No," she said. " I owe him too deep a debt
of gratitude to think of such a thing. And in his
eyes I read more than I can put in words. No,
dear father ! You must summon him at once to
be presented to our people as my affianced
husband."

So again the cortege of Prince Jocko made its
way to the palace, and again the litter, with its
closely drawn curtains, drew up at the marble
steps. And Sweet-Heart stood, pale, but calm
and smiling, to welcome her ridiculous betrothed.

PRINCESS ICE-HEART. 93

But who is this that quickly mounts the stairs
with firm and manly tread ? Sweet-Heart nearly
swooned again.

" Jocko ? " she murmured. " Where is Jocko ?
Why, this is Prince Francolin ! "

"Yes, dear child," said a bright voice beside
her; and, turning round. Sweet- Heart beheld the
Western fairy, who, with her sisters, had sud-
denly arrived. " Yes, indeed ! Francolin, and no
other!"

The universal joy may be imagined. Even
the grave fairy of the North smiled with pleasure
and delight, and, as she kissed her pretty god-
daughter, she took the girl's hand and pressed
it against her own heart.

" Never misjudge me, Sweet-Heart," she whis-
pered. "Cold as I seem to those who have not
courage to approach me closely, my heart, under
my icy mantle, is as warm as is now your
own."

And so it was.

Where can we get a better ending than the
time-honoured one .-• Francolin and Sweet-Heart

94 STUDIES AND STORIES.

were married, and lived happy ever after ; and who
knows but what, in the kingdom of the Four Orts,
they are living happily still ?

If only we knew the way thither, we might see
for ourselves if it is so !

( 95 ;

OLD GERVAIS.

A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE.

Penforres Hall, Carmichael, N.B.,

Jan. 17th, 188—.

. . . And now, as to your questions about that long-
ago story. What put it into your head, I wonder?
You have been talking " ghosts " like everybody
else nowadays, no doubt, and you want to have
something to tell that you had at " first hand."
Ah well, I will try to recall my small experience
of the kind as accurately as my old brain is
capable of doing at so long a distance. Though,
after all, that is scarcely a correct way of putting
it. For, like all elderly people, I find it true,
strikingly true, that the longer ago the better,
as far as memory is concerned. I can recollect
events, places — nay, words and looks and tones,
material impressions of the most trivial, such as

g6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

scents and tastes, of forty or fifty years ago, far
more vividly, more minutely, than things of a year
or even a month past. It is strange, but I like it.
There is something consolatory and suggestive
about it. It seems to show that we are still all
there, or all here, rather ; that there is a some-
thing— an innermost " I " — which goes on, faithful
and permanent, however rusty and dull the
machinery may grow with the wear and tear
of time and age.

But you won't thank me for reflections of this
kind. You want my little personal experience
of the " more things," and you shall have it.

You know, of course, that by birth — by descent,
that is to say — I am a little, a quarter or half a
quarter, French, And by affection I have always
felt myself much more than that. It is often so ;
there is a sort of loyalty in us to the weaker side
of things. Just because there is really so much
less French than English in me, because I have

spent nearly all my threescore and ! years

in Great Britain, I feel bound to stand up for the
Gallic part of me, and to feel quite huffed and

OLD GERVAIS. 97

ofifendcd if France or " Frcnchncss " is decried. It
is silly, I dare say ; but somehow I cannot help
it. We don't know, we can't say in what pro-
portions our ancestors are developed in us. It
is possible that I am really, paradoxical as it may
sound, more French than English, after all.

yi3?/.know all about me, but if you want to tell
my bit of a ghost-story to others, you will under-
stand that I am not actuated by egotism in
explaining things. It was through my being a
little French that I came to pay long visits to
old friends of my mother's in Normandy. They
were not relations, but connections by marriage,
and bound by the closest ties of association and
long affection to our cousins. And the wife of
the head of the family, dear Madame de Viremont,
was my own godmother. She had visited us in
England and Scotland — she loved both, and she
was cosmopolitan enough to think it only natural
that even as a young girl I should be allowed
to cross the channel to stay with her for weeks,
nay, months at a time, in her old chateau of
Viremont-lcs-bocages. Not tliat I travelled over

H

98 STUDIES AND STORIES.

there alone — ah no, indeed ! Girls, even of the
unmistakably upper classes, do travel alone now,
I am assured, still I can't say that it has ever
come within my own knowledge that a young
lady should journey by herself to Normandy,
though I believe such things are done. But it
was very different in my young days. My father
himself took me to Paris — I am speaking just
now of the first time I went, with which indeed
only, I am at present concerned — and after a few
days of sightseeing there, Madame de Viremont's
own maid came to escort me to my destination
— the chateau.

We travelled by diligence, of course — the
journey that five or six hours would now see
accomplished took us the best part of two days.
At Caen, my godmother met us, and I spent a
night in her "hotel" there — the town residence
of the family — dear old house that it was ! Many
a happy day have I spent there since. And then,
at Caen, I was introduced for the first time to my
godmother's granddaughters, her son's children,
Albertine and Virginie. Albertine was older than

OLD GERVAIS. 99

I, Virgiiiic two years younger. \Vc were dread-
fully shy of each other, though Albertine was
too well bred to show it, and talked formalities
in a way that I am sure made her grandmother
smile. Virginie, dear soul, did not speak at all,
which you must remember is not bad manners
in a French girl before she is out, and I, as far as
I recollect, spoke nonsense in very bad French,
and blushed at the thought of it afterwards. It
was stupid of me, for I really could speak the
language very decently.

Rut that all came right. I think we took to
each other in spite of our shyness and awkward-
ness, at once. It must have been so, for we
have remained friends ever since, staunch friends,
though Albertine's life has been spent among the
great ones of the earth (she is a great-grand-
mother now) and I only see my Virginie once a
year, or once in two or three years, for a few
hours, at the convent of which she has long, long
been the head ; and / am an old-fashioned,
narrow-minded perhaps, Scotch maiden lady of
a very certain age, who finds it not always easy

100 STUDIES AND STORIES.

to manage the journey to France even to see her
dear old friends.

How deh'ghtful, how unspeakably exciting and
interesting and fascinating that first real glimpse
into the home life of another nation was ! The
queernesses, the extraordinary differences, the
indescribable mingling of primitiveness with ultra
refinement, of stateliness and dignity of bearing
and customs with odd unsophisticatedness such
as I had imagined mediaeval at least — all added
to the charm.

How well I remember my first morning's
waking in my bedroom at the chateau ! There
was no carpet on the floor ; no looking-glass,
except a very black and unflattering one which
might have belonged to Noah's wife, over the
chimney-piece ; no attempt at a dressing-table ;
a ewer and basin in the tiny cabinet-de-toilette
which would have delighted my little sister for
her dolls. Yet the cup in which old Desiree
brought me my morning chocolate was of almost
priceless china, and the chocolate itself such as
I do not think I ever have tasted elsewhere, so

OLD GERVAIS. lOI

rich and fragrant and steaming hot — the roll
which accompanied it, though sour, lying on a
little fringed doyley marked with the Viremont
crest in embroidery which must have cost some-
body's eyes something.

It seemed to me like awaking in a fairy-tale
in a white cat's chateau. And the charm lasted
till I had come to feel so entirely at home with
my dear, courteous, kindly hosts, that I forgot to
ask myself if I were enjoying myself or no.
Nay, longer than till then, did it last — indeed, I
have never lost the feeling of it — at any moment
I can hear the tapping of my godmother's stoutly
shod feet as she trotted about early in the
morning, superintending her men and maidens,
and giving orders for the day ; I can scent the
perfume of Monsieur's pet roses ; I can hear the
sudden wind, for we were not far from the sea,
howling and crying through the trees as I lay in
my alcove bed at night.

It was not a great house, though called a chateau.
It was one of the still numerous moderate-sized
old country houses which escaped the destruction

I02 STUDIES AND STORIES.

of that terrible time now nearly a century past.
The De Viremonts were of excellent descent,
but they had never been extremely wealthy, nor
very prominent. They were pious, home-loving,
cultivated folk — better read than most of their
class in the provinces, partly perhaps thanks to
their English connections which had widened their
ideas, partly because they came of a scholarly and
thoughtful race. The house was little changed
from what it must have been for a century or more.
The grounds, so Madame de Viremont told me,
were less well tended than in her husband's child-
hood, for it was increasingly difficult to get good
gardeners, and she herself had no special gift in
that line, such as her mother-in-law had been
famed for. And though Monsieur loved his roses,
his interest in horticulture began and ended with
them. I don't think he minded how untidy and
wilderness-like the grounds were, provided the
little bit near the house was pretty decent. For
there, round the " lawn " which he and Madame
fondly imagined was worthy of the name, bloomed
his beloved flowers.

OLD GERVAIS. IO3

If it had been my own home, the wildncss of the
unkempt grounds would have worried me sadl}'.
I have ahvays been old-maidish about neatness
and tidiness, I think. But as it was not my home,
and I therefore felt no uncomfortable responsi-
bility, I think I rather liked it. It was wonder-
fully picturesque — here and there almost mys-
terious. One terrace I know, up and down which
Virginic and I were specially fond of pacing,
always reminded me of the garden in George
Sand's " Chateau de Pictordu," if only there had
been a broken statute at one end !

The time passed quickly, even during the first
two or three weeks, when my only companions
were " Marraine," as Madame made me call her,
and her husband. I was not at all dull or bored,
though my kind friends would scarcely believe it,
and constantly tried to cheer my supposed loneli-
ness by telling me how pleasant it would be when
les petites — Albertine and Virginie — ^joined us, as
they were to do before long. I didn't feel very
eager about their coming. I could not forget my
shyness ; though, of course, I did not like to say

104 STUDIES AND STORIES.

SO. I only repeated to my godmother that I could
not feel dull when she and Monsieur de Viremont
were • doing so much to amuse me. And for
another reason I was glad to be alone with my
old friends at first. I was very anxious to improve
my French, and I worked hard at it under Mon-
sieur's directions. He used to read aloud to us in
the evenings ; he read splendidly, and besides the
exercises and dictations he gave me, he used to
make me read aloud too. I hated it at first, but
gradually I improved very much, and then I liked it

So passed three or four weeks ; then at last one
morning came a letter announcing the grand-
daughters' arrival on the following day. I could
not but try to be pleased, for it was pretty to see
how delighted every one at the chateau was, to
hear the news.

" They must be nice girls," I thought, ^' other-
wise all the servants and people about would not
like them so much," and I made myself take an
interest in going round with my godmother super-
intending the little preparations she was making
for the girls.

OLD GERVAIS. IO5

They were to have separate rooms. Albertine's
was beside mine, Virginic's on the floor above.
There was a good deal of excitement about
Virginic's room, for a special reason. Her grand-
mother was arranging a surprise for her, in the
shape of a little oratory. It was a tiny closet —
a dark closet it had been, used originally for
hanging up dresses, in one corner of her room, and
here on her last visit, the girl had placed her
pne-Dim, and hung up her crucifix. Madame de
Viremont had noticed this, and just lately she had
had the door taken away, and the little recess
freshly painted, and a small window knocked out,
and all made as pretty as possible for the sacred
purpose.

I felt quite interested in it. It was a queer
little recess — almost like a turret — and Madame
showed me that it ran up the w hole height of the
house from the cellars where it began, as an out-
jut, with an arched window to give light to one
end of the large " cave " at that side, which would
otherwise have been quite dark.

" The great cellar used to be a perfect rat-

I06 STUDIES AND STORIES.

warren," she told me, " till light and air were thus
thrown into it. What that odd out-jut was
originally, no one knows. There goes a story
that a secret winding-staircase, very, very narrow,
of course, once ran up it to the roof. There were
some doubts, I know, as to the solidity of the
masonry — it has sunk a little at one side, you can
see it in the cellar. But I expect it has all
'settled,' as they call it, long ago. Old Gervais,
whom we employed to knock out the new window
in Virginie's little oratory, had no doubt about it,
and he is a clever mason."

" Old Gervais," I repeated ; " who is he, Marraine ?
I don't think I have seen him, have I "i "

For she had spoken of him as if I must have
known whom she meant.

" Have you not ? " she said. " He is a dear old
man — one of our great resources. He is so honest

and intelligent. But no I dare say you have

not seen him. He does not live in our village,
but at Plaudry, a mere hamlet about three miles
off. And he goes about a good deal ; the neigh-
bouring families know his value, and he is always

OLD GERVAIS. loy

in request for some repairs or other work. He
is devout, too," my godmother added ; " a simple,
sincere, and yet intelligent Christian. And that
is very rare nowadays : the moment one finds
a thoughtful or intelligent mind among our poor,
it seems to become the prey of all the sad and
hopeless teaching so much in the air."

And Madame de Viremont sighed. But in a
moment or two she spoke again in her usual
cheerful tone.

" It was quite a pleasure to see Gervais' in-
terest in this little place," she said — we were
standing in the oratory at the time. " He has
the greatest admiration for our Virginie, too," she
added, " as indeed every one has who knows the
child."

" She does look 7r;j sweet," I said, and truly.
But as I had scarcely heard Virginie open her lips,
I could not personally express admiration of any-
thing dut her looks ! In those days too, the repu-
tation of unusual "goodness" — as applied to
Virginie de Viremont, I see now that the word
" sanctity " would scarcely be too strong to use —

I08 STUDIES AND STORIES.

in one so young, younger than myself, rather
alarmed than attracted me.

But her grandmother seemed quite pleased.

"You will find the looks a true index," she said.

I was examining the oratory — and wondering
if there was any little thing I could do to help to
complete it. Suddenly I exclaimed to my god-
mother—

"Marraine, the floor does sink decidedly at
one side — ^just move across slowly, and you will
feel it."

" I know," she replied composedly, " that is the
side of the settling I told you of It is the same
in the two intermediate stories— one of them is
my own cabinet-de-toilette. If Virginie does not
observe it at once, we shall have Albertine dis-
covering it some day, and teasing the poor child
by saying she has weighed down the flooring by
kneeling too much — it is just where she will
kneel."

" Is Albertine a tease ? " I asked ; and in mj'
heart I was not sorry to hear it.

" Ah, yes indeed," said Madame. " She is full

OLD GERVAIS. 109

of spirits. But Virginie, too, has plenty of fun
in her."

My misgivings soon dispersed.

The two girls had not been forty-eight hours
at Viremont before we were the best of friends,
Virginie and I especially. For though Albertine
was charming, and truly high-principled and re-
liable, there was not about her the quite inde-
scribable fascination which her sister has always
possessed for me. I have never known any one
like Virginie, and I am quite sure I never shall.
Her character was the most childlike one in
certain ways that you could imagine — absolutely
single-minded, unselfish, and sunny — and yet
joined to this a strength of principle like a rock,
a resolution, determination, and courage, once she
was convinced that a thing was rigJit^ such as
would have made a martyr of her without a
moment's flinching. I have often tried to de-
scribe her to you ; and the anecdote of her child-
hood, which at last I am approaching — she was
barely out of childhood — shows what she was
even then.

no STUDIES AND STORIES.

Those were very happy days. Everything
united to make them so. The weather was
lovely, we were all well, even Monsieur's gout
and IMadame's occasional rheumatism having for
the time taken to themselves wings and fled,
while we girls were as brilliantly healthful and
full of life as only young things can be. What
fun we had ! Games of hide-and-seek in the
so-called garden — much of it better described as
a wilderness, as I have said — races on the terrace ;
explorations now and then, on the one or two
partially rainy days, of Madame's stores — from
her own treasures of ancient brocades and scraps
of precious lace and tapestry, to the " rubbish,"
much of it really rubbish, though some of it quaint
and interesting, hoarded for a century or two
in the great "grenier" which extended over a
large part of the house under the rafters. I have
by me now, in this very room where I write,
some precious odds and ends which we extracted
from the collection, and which my godmother told
me I might take home with me to Scotland, if
I thought it worth the trouble.

OLD GERVAIS. I I I

One clay \vc had been running about the grounds
till, breathless and tired, wc were glad to sit down
on the seat at the far end of the terrace. And,
while there, we heard some one calling us.

"Albertine, Virginie, Jeannette," said the voice.

" It is grandpapa," said Virginie, starting up,
and running in the direction indicated, Albertine
and I following her more leisurely.

" Where have you been, my children ? " said
the old gentleman, as we got up to him. " I have
been seeking you — what are your plans for the
afternoon? Your grandmother is going to pay
some calls, and proposes that one of you should
go with her, while I invite the other two to join
me in a good walk — a long walk, I warn you —
to riaudry. What do you say to that ? "

The two girls looked at me. As the stranger,
they seemed to think it right that I should speak
first.

" I should like the walk best," I said with a
smile. " I have not been to Plaudry, and they
say it is so pretty. And — perhaps Marraine
would prefer one of you two to pay calls — I have

112 STUDIES AND STORIES.

already visited most of your neighbours with her
before you came, and every one was asking when
you were coming."

" Albertine, then," said her grandfather. " Yes,
that will be best. And you two little ones shall
come with me."

The arrangement seemed to please all concerned,
especially when Monsieur went on to say that
the object of his expedition was to see Gervais
the mason.

" Oh," said Virginie, " I am so glad. I want
to thank him for all the interest he took in my
dear little oratory. Grandmamma told me about
it."

Her eyes sparkled. I think I have omitted to
say that Madame de Viremont had been well
rewarded for her trouble by Virginie's delight in
the little surprise prepared for her.

" I want him to see to the arch of the window
in the * cave,' " said Monsieur. " Some stones are
loosened, one or two actually dropped out. Per-
haps his knocking out of your little window,
Virginie, has had to do with it. In any case,

OLD GERVAIS. I I 3

it must be looked to, without delay. Come round
that way, and you shall see what I mean."

lie led us to the far side of the house. The
window in question had been made in the out-
jut I have described ; but as it was below the
level of the ground, a space had been cleared out
in front of it, making a sort of tiny yard, and
two or three steps led down to this little spot.
It seemed to have been used as a receptacle for
odds and ends — flower-pots, a watering-can, etc.,
were lying about. Monsieur went down the steps
to show us the crumbling masonry. He must
have had good eyes to see it, I thought, for only
by pushing aside with his stick the thickly
growing ivy, could he show us the loosened and
falling stones. But then in a moment he ex-
plained.

" I saw it from the inside. I was showing the
men where to place some wine I have just had
sent in, in the wood. And the proper cellar is
over-full — yes, it must certainly be seen to.
Inside it looks very shaky."

So we three walked to Plaudry that afternoon.

I

114 STUDIES AND STOAVES.

It was a lovely walk, for Monsieur knew the
shortest way, partly through the woods, by which
we avoided the long, hot stretch of high-road.
And when we reached our destination — a hamlet
of only half a dozen cottages at most — by good
luck Gervais was at home, though looking half
ashamed to be caught idle, in spite of his evident
pleasure at the visit.

He had not been very well lately, his good
wife explained, and she had insisted on his taking
a little rest. And though I had never seen him
before, it seemed to me I could have discerned a
worn look — the look of pain patiently borne — in
the old man's quiet, gentle face and eyes.

" Gervais not well ! " said Monsieur. " Why,
that is something new. What's been the matter,
my friend ? "

Oh, it was nothing — nothing at all. The old
wife frightened herself for nothing, he said. A
little rheumatism, no doubt— a pain near the
heart. But it was better, it would pass. What
was it Monsieur wanted ? He would be quite
ready to see to it by to-morrow.

OLD GERVAIS. I 15

Then Monsieur explained, and I could sec that
at once the old mason's interest was specially
aroused. " Ah yes, certainly," he interjected. It
must be seen to — he had had some misgivings,
but had wished to avoid further expense. But
all should be put right. And he was so glad that
Mademoiselle was pleased with the little oratory,
his whole face lighting up as he said it. To-
morrow by sunrise, or at least as soon as possible
after, he would be at the chateau.

Then we turned to go home again, though not
till Madame Gervais had fetched us a cup of milk,
to refresh us after our walk ; for they were well to
do, in their way, and had a cow of their own,
though the bare, dark kitchen, which in England
would scarcely seem better than a stable, gave
little evidence of any such prosperity. I said
some words to that effect to my companions, and
then I was sorry I had done so.

" Why, did you not see the armoire ? " said
Virginie. " It is quite a beauty."

"And the bed and bedding would put many
such commodities in an English cottage to shame,

Il6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

I fancy," added Monsieur, which I could not but
allow was probably true.

Gervais kept his word. He was at his post in
the " cave " long before any of us were awake, and
Virginie's morning devotions must have been dis-
turbed by the knocking and hammering far
below.

He was at it all day. Monsieur went down to
speak to him once or twice, but Gervais had his
peculiarities. He would not give an opinion as
to the amount of repair necessary till he was sure.
And that afternoon we all went for a long drive —
to dine with friends, and return in the evening.
When we came home, there was a message left
for Monsieur by the old mason to the effect that
he would come again " to-morrow," and would then
be able to explain all. Monsieur must not mind
if he did not come early, as he would have to get
something made at the forge — something iron,
said the young footman who gave the message.

"Ah, just so," said Monsieur. "He has found
it more serious than he expected, I fancy ; but it
will be all right, now it is in his hands."

OLD GERVAIS. WJ

So the next morning there was no early knock-
ing or tapping to be heard in the old cellar. Nor
did Gervais return later, as he had promised.

" He must have been detained at the forge,"
said Monsieur. " No doubt he will come to-
morrow.

To-morrow came, but with it no Gervais. And
Monsieur de Viremont, who was old and some-
times a little irascible, began to feel annoyed. He
went down to the cellar, to inspect the work.

" It is right enough," he said, when he came up
stairs to the room where we four ladies were sitting
— there had been a change in the weather, and it
was a stormily rainy day — " I see he has got out
the loose stones, and made it all solid enough, but
it looks unsightly and unfinished. It wants point-
ing, and "

" What was it Alphonse said about an iron
band or something?" said Madame. "Perhaps
Gervais is getting one made, and it has taken
longer than he expected."

"It is not necessary," said the old gentleman.
" Gervais is over-cautious. No — a girder would

Il8 STUDIES AND STORIES.

be nonsense ; but I do not like to see work left so
untidy ; and it is not his usual way."

So little indeed was it the old mason's way, that
when another day passed, and there was no news
of Gervais, Monsieur determined to send in the
morning to hunt him d^.

" I would have walked over this afternoon
myself," he said, " if the weather had been less
terrible."

For it really was terrible — one of those sudden
storms to which, near the sea, we are always liable,
even in summer — raging wind, fierce beating,
dashing rain, that take away for the time all sensa-
tion of June or July.

But whatever the weather was, orders were
given that night that one of the outdoor men
was to go over to Plaudry first thing the next
morning.

Monsieur had a bad night, a touch of gout, and
he could not get to sleep till very late, or rather
early. So Madame told us when we met at table
for the eleven o'clock big breakfast.

" He only awoke an hour ago, and I wanted

OLD GERVAIS. Up

him to stay in bed all day," she said. " But
he would not consent to do so. Ah ! there he
comes," as our host at that moment entered the
room with apologies for his tardiness.

The wind had gone down, though in the night
it had been fiercer than ever ; but it was still rain-
ing pitilessly.

" I do hope the storm is over," said Virginie.
" Last night, when I was saying my prayers, it
almost frightened me. I really thought I felt the
walls rocking."

" Nonsense, child !" said her grandfather, sharply.
Incipient gout is not a sweetener of the temper.
But Virginia's remark had reminded him of some-
thing.

"Has Jean Pierre come back from Plaudry ? "
he asked the servant behind his chair ; "and what
message did he bring ? "

Alphonse started. He had been entrusted with
a message, though not the one expected, but had
forgotten to give it.

" He did not go, Monsieur," he said ; hastily
adding, before there was time for his master to

I20 STUDIES AND STORIES,

begin to storm. "There was no need. Old Gcr-
vais was here this morning — very early, before it
was light almost ; so Nicolas " — Nicolas was the
bailiff — "said no one need go."

" Oh — ah, well," said Monsieur, mollified. " Then
tell Gervais I want to speak to him before he
leaves."

Then Alphonse looked slightly uneasy.

" He is gone already, unfortunately — before
Monsieur's bell rang. He must have had but
little to do — by eight o'clock, or before, he was
gone."

Monsieur de Viremont looked annoyed.

" Very strange," he said, " when he left word he
would explain all to me. Did you see him ? did
he say nothing ? "

No, Alphonse had not seen him — he had only
heard him knocking. But he would inquire more
particularly if there was no message.

He came back in a few moments, looking per-
plexed. No one, it appeared, had really seen the
mason ; no one, at least, except a little lad, Denis
by name — who worked in the garden — " the little

OLD GERVAIS. 12 1

fellow who sinews in the choir," said Alphonsc. He
— Denis — had seen Gervais' face from the garden,
at the window. And he had called out, " Good
morning," but Gervais did not answer.

" And the work is completed .-' Has he perhaps
left his tools? if so, he may be coming back again,"
asked Monsieur.

Alphonse could not say. Impatient, the old
gentleman rose from the table, and went off to make
direct inquiry.

" Very odd, very odd indeed," he said when he
returned and sat down again. " To all appearance,
the work is exactly as it was when he left it three
days ago. Not tidied up or finished. And yet the
cook and all heard him knocking for two hours
certainly, and the child, Denis, saw him."

" I dare say he will be returning," said Madame,
soothingly. " Let us wait till this evening."

So they did ; but no Gervais came back, and the
rain went on falling, chill, drearily monotonous.

Just before dinner Monsieur summoned the
bailiff.

"Someone must go first thing to-morrow," he

122 STUDIES AND STORIES.

began at once, when Nicolas appeared, " and tell
Gervais sharply that I won't be played the fool
with. What has come over the old fellow ? "

*' No, Monsieur, certainly not. Monsieur's orders
must be treated with respect," replied Nicolas,
ienorincf for the moment his master's last few

words. " But " and then we noticed that he

was looking pale, " Some one has just called in
from Plaudry — a neighbour — he thought we should
like to know. Gervais is dead — he died last night.
He has been ill these three days — badly ill ; the
heart, they say. And the weather has stopped
people coming along the roads as much as usual,
else we should have heard. Poor old Gervais —
peace to his soul." And Nicolas crossed himself.

"Dead!'' Monsieur repeated.

"Dead!'' we all echoed.

It seemed incredible. Monsieur, I know, wished
he had not spoken so sharply.

"Virginie, Jeannette," whispered Albertine.
" It must have been his ghost ! "

But she would not have dared to say so to her
grandfather.

OLD GERVAIS. 123

" It is sad, very sad," said Monsieur and
Madame. Then a few directions were given to
the bailiff, to offer any help she might be in
want of, to the poor widow, and Nicolas was
dismissed.

"It just shows what imagination will do," said
Monsieur; "all these silly servants believing they
heard him, when it was impossible^

" Yes," whispered Albertinc again, " and Denis
Blanc, who saw him. And Denis, who is so truth-
ful ; a little saint indeed ! You know, Virginia,
the boy with the lovely voice."

Virginie bent her head in assent, but said
nothing. And the subject was not referred to
again that evening.

But

The storm was over, next day was cloudless,
seeming as if such things as wind and rain and
weather fury had never visited this innocent-
looking world before. Again we went off to a
neighbouring chateau, returning late and tired,
and we all slept soundly. Again an exquisite
day. Monsieur was reading aloud to us in the

124 STUDIES AND STORIES.

salon that evening ; it was nearly bedtime, when
a sort of skirmish and rush — hushed, yet excited
voices, weeping even, were heard outside.

Monsieur stopped. " What is it ? " he said
Then rising, he went to the door.

A small crowd of servants was gathered there,
arguing, vociferating, yet with a curious hush
over it all.

" What is it ? " repeated the master sternly.

Then it broke out. They could stand it no
longer; something must be done; though Monsieur
had forbidden them to talk nonsense — it was not
nonsense, only too true.

" What ? " thundered the old gentleman.

" About Gervais. He was there again — at the
present moment. He had been there the night
before, but no one had dared to tell. He had
returned, no notice having been taken of his first
warning. And he %vo2ild return. There now, if
every one would be perfectly still, even here, his
knockings could be heard."

The speaker was the cook. And truly, as an
uncanny silence momentarily replaced the muffled

OLD GERVAIS. 125

hubbub, f\ir-off yet distinct taps, comiiif^ from
below, were to be heard.

" Some trick," said Monsieur. " Let us go
down, all of us together, and get to the bottom
of this affair."

I Ic led the way ; we women, and after us the
crowd of terrified servants, following. Monsieur
paused at the kitchen door.

" It is dark in the 'cave,'" he said.

" No, no," cried the cook. " There is a beautiful
moon. Not a light, pray Monsieur ; he might not
like it."

All was silent.

We reached the cellar, and entered it a little
way. Quite a distance off, so it seemed, was the
arched window, the moonlight gleaming through
it eerily, the straggling ivy outside taking strange
black shapes ; but no one to be seen, nothing to
be heard.

Ah, what was that } The knocking again, un-
mistakable, distinct, real. And why did one side
of the window grow dark, as if suddenly thrown
into shadow .-' Was there scmetlmig intercepting

126 STUDIES AND STORIES.

the moonlight ? It seemed misty, or was it partly
that we scarcely dared look ?

Then, to our surprise, the grandfather's voice
sounded out clearly.

"Virginie, my child," he said, "you are the
youngest, the most guileless, perhaps the one who
has least cause for fear. Would you dread to
step forward and — speak ? If so be it is a message
from the poor fellow, let him tell it. Show every
one that those who believe in the good God need
not be afraid."

Like a white angel, Virginie, in her^Hght summer
dress, glided forward, silent. She walked straight
on ; then, rather to our surprise, she crossed the
floor, and stood almost out of sight in the dark
corner, at the further side of the window. Then
she spoke —

" Gervais, my poor Gervais," she said. " Is it
you .-* I think I see you, but I cannot be sure.
What is troubling you, my friend ? What is
keeping you from your rest ? "

Then all was silent again. I should have said
that as Virginie went forward, the knocking

OLD GERVAIS. 12;

ceased — so silent that \vc could almost hear our
hearts beat. And then — Virginie was speaking
again, and not repeating Jier questions ! When we
realized this, it did seem awful. She was carrying
on a conversation. She had been ansivered.

What she said I cannot recall. Her voice was
lower now ; it sounded almost dreamy. And in
a moment or two she came back to us, straight to
her grandfather.

" I will tell you all," she said. " Come upstairs
— all will be quiet now," she added, in a tone
almost of command, to the awestruck servants.
And upstairs she told.

" I do not know if he spoke," she said, in
answer to Albcrtinc's eager inquiries. " I can-
not tell. I know what he wanted, that is enough.
No ; I did not exactly see him ; but — he was
there."

And this was the message, simple enough.
The wall was not safe, though he had done what
could be done to the stonework. Iron girders
must be fixed, and that without delay. He had
felt too ill to cfo to the forc^e that night as he

128 STUDIES AND STORIES.

had intended, and the unfinished work, the pos-
sible danger, was sorely on his mind.

" He thanked me," said Virginie, simply. " He
feared that grandfather would think all the solid
work was done, and that the wall only needed
finishing for appearance."

As, indeed, Monsieur de Viremont had thought.

Afterwards the old woman told us a little more.
Gervais had been alternately delirious and uncon-
scious these two or three days. He had talked
about the work at Viremont, but she thought it
raving, till just at the last he tried to whisper
something, and she saw he was clear-headed again,
about letting Monsieur know. She had meant to
do so when her own first pressure of grief and
trouble was over. She never knew that the warn-
ing had been forestalled.

That is all. And it was long ago, and there
are thrillingly sensational ghost-stories to be had
by the score nowadays. It seems nothing. But
I have always thought it touching and impressive,
knowing it to be true.

OLD GERVAIS. 1 29

If I have wearied you by my old woman's
garrulity, forgive it. It has been a pleasure to
me to recall those days.

Your ever affectionate,

Janet Marie Bethune.

K

I30 STUDIES AND STORIES.

''ONCE kissed:'

She was quick, capable, and energetic — unselfish
and devoted. But she was enthusiastic and in-
experienced ; in a word, too young, perhaps, for
the work she had undertaken — that of nursing in
a children's hospital.

The circumstances of her life had altered : from
being the petted darling of her grandparents'
luxurious home, she found herself almost alone.
For the first time, she realized her orphanhood,
not merely in the want of the closest, the nearest
of human ties and affections, those we are born
to, and feel ours by " Divine right," but in another
blank — less painful, in one sense, certainly less
sympathized with, but, I would venture to say,
to a conscientious, aspiring nature, more perplex-
ing, more spirit-troubling than where the direct

''ONCE kissed:' 131

fiat of the All-wise leaves us naught to do but
to bow the head in submission.

She had no distinct, unmistakable sphere of
duty, no not-to-be-set-aside work, or what may
be called secondary objects in life. For what the
first and highest aim of all human existence
should be, religion had taught her ; and hitherto
the directions in which she personally was to act
it out in daily routine and "common task," had,
to a certain extent at least, been recognizable,
l^ut now all was different — there was no grand-
father to walk out with, to read to ; no grand-
mother to wait upon and cheer with her bright
young presence ; no pretty and gracious (though
not necessarily, on that account, to be despised),
home charities to dispense to the poorer neigh-
bours she had known from her infancy, and the
girl was all at sea.

"Is it my fault?" she asked herself. "Have
I been selfish and thoughtless "} or — but no, I
cannot bear to blame them — still, in their love,
they may have been mistaken. Did they bring me
up too indulgently, with too little care for any

132 STUDIES AND STORIES.

but ourselves? If so, I must face it now. For
there is something to do always, everywhere, if
only I could find it ! "

And at this crisis there came across her some
suggestion of the special work in question — work
so needed, so grand, if taken up in the best way,
though, as must be the case in the youth of all
great movements, so often rashly or inconsider-
ately embraced, so little leavened by that which
should leaven all things.

" I will do it," she decided. " It is the one
thing which has distinctly come in my way ; so it
must be meant. It may train me for some work
of my own in the future."

And probably she was right. Where there is
only one finger-post visible to us, what can we do
but follow it ? And even if it be a mistake — there
are mistakes and mistakes — there are some which
prove in the end stepping-stones ; there are
failures better than success.

" I love children with all my heart," thought
Esme ; " that I can say for myself. I think I have
it in me to be infinitely patient with them ; above

''ONCE KISSED r 1 33

all, poor children and suffering ones. I could
imagine myself being very severe to selfish, spoilt,
ricJi children, though of course there are dear
sweet things among rich children too. Still, on
the whole, I think I am glad I am well-off, and
not obliged to be a governess."

Poor dear! she knew uncommonly little about
children. Few, so young as she, knew as little.
Her own childhood had been exceptional, tenderly
sheltered and companionless. Now and then, as
she grew older, she had seen something of the
nurseries and schoolrooms of her own class ; had
gone into raptures over some large-eyed, solemn
darling scarce out of babyhood, or some quaintly
attired, dainty damsel with a fluff of shaggy
golden hair, who suffered herself to be kissed and
vouchsafed with a fascinating lisp, some con-
fidences about her dolls or her dachshund, and
was often, perhaps, as sweet as she seemed. Once
or twice, too, Esme had been disgusted by an
experience of that objectionable thing, a regular
"spoilt child" — a thing, in the superficial sense,
but rarely seen in our modern world compared

134 STUDIES AND STORIES.

with a generation or so ago ; for, strictly as
children were brought up in past years, taking
them en masse, there were flagrant, unmistakable
exceptions. There were silly people who dis-
tinctly spoilt their little ones by foolish, rampant
over-indulgence, which, however, brought its own
cure — the effect being so quickly and surely to
make the poor creatures odious that they were
pretty sure to pull themselves up sooner or later ;
while nowadays it is, I fear, too often the good,
wise, and even sensible parents who do the fatal
work all unwittingly. The very theories against
foolish indulgence, the very rules so carefully
considered, so methodically carried out, are not
seldom more disastrous in their consequences than
the unlimited "goodies," or ridiculous petting
lavished upon " Miss " or " Master " in our grand-
mothers' days. For, with the quick intelligence
and almost unfailing instinct of childhood. Jack
and Ethel soon discover that in their own home
they are the pivots round which the universe
revolves ; that if Jack takes a poorish place at
school — perhaps not a bad thing for him, by any

" ONCE kissed:' 135

means — the family equilibrium is extraordinarily-
disturbed ; that if Ethel and her govdrness do not
hit it off, mamma and her friends gravely discuss
the possible faults of the governess's *' system."
All very well, and, to a certain extent, requisite ;
but that the children should suspect their own
importance, and learn to exaggerate it as they do,
cannot be a wise or necessary part of the plan.

Esme's knowledge of children of the lower
classes was fully as limited and perhaps even less
real than her acquaintance with small folk in the
higher ranks of life. True, she had had her
Sunday school class in the village of which her
grandfather had been the squire, she had run in
and out of the cottages with beef-tea and jelly
when trouble and sickness were about, braving,
with her good grandmother's approval, the possible
risks of infection or pitiful sights. ]?ut then she
had always been "Miss Esme," "our young lady,"
and the little maidens of her class were docile if
dull, and the terror of disgrace or loss of Miss
Esme's favour was more powerful with them than
she in the least suspected. They were "dear,

136 STUDIES AND STORIES.

good girls," she used to say, "though of course
not nearly so interesting as the children of the
really poor — the children of the East end, for
instance," about whom she had heard a very little
and read a good deal, and imagined herself
thoroughly well informed. So that when she came
into actual contact with them, her mind and fancy
were peopled with " Froggy's little brother
Ben's," or small women of the " Little Meg " type
— rarities assuredly, though far be it from me to
say such cannot and do not exist, in all the
greater loveliness from the contrast with their
terrible surroundings.

The disillusionment was bitter, and it came
quickly, though the girl did not yield to it without
inward resistance.

" It must be my fault. I don't understand their
ways," she would say to herself. " I suppose they
have feelings — most of them love their mothers, and
their mothers love them." And she would pluck
up heart again and rejoice in any glimmer of the
ineffable charm of innocent childhood — of the gold
amidst the alloy induced by the poor, unlovely

''ONCE KISSED r 1 37

lives from which many of the young sufferers were,
for a moment, as it were, lifted into a purer
atmosphere.

And by degrees, though the disappointment and
the disillusionment grew deeper, and could no
longer be dissembled to herself, from the very
ashes of her girlish, half-poetical enthusiasm, rose
a truer and a nobler trust. And there came, as I
have just said, brighter gleams now and then — a
sweet child-nature would sparkle out unstained
and ingenuous, like a stray diamond in the mud
and dust, or childish confidences would reveal to
Esme the existence of homes worthy of the name ;
homes, despite their own poverty, and far worse
than poverty close by, well-nigh as pure and loving
as had been her own.

Still, it was very unlike what she had dreamt
of, and the strain and fatigue, the responsibility,
the incessant tragedy of the whole, the absolute
difference in a thousand ways, small and great
from anything Esme had hitherto known, the
utter absence of any kind of "home" feeling most
of all, told upon her, strong and healthy as

138 STUDIES AND STORIES.

she was. There were times when she almost lost
heart.

And, of course, there was much call for patience
as well as devotion, much trial of temper, much,
very much to discourage and even depress, in the
patients themselves as well as in the work.

Esme had been some months at her post, when
one day a peculiarly unattractive child was given
into her charge. It was a boy of about three or
four, dirty to the last degree, gaunt, yellow, and
starved-looking, with a stupid yet old-mannish
sort of face — so stupid, indeed, as to raise a doubt
in the young nurse's mind as to whether he were
" all there."

The dirt, of course, was got rid of, but the result
was less pleasing than was sometimes the case,
when a good scrubbing would bring to light some
childish charms underneath the unseemly mask.
Billy remained gaunt and yellow and impish — the
latter word even being too complimentary, with its
suggestion of some fun and liveliness, to anything
so stolid and uninteresting. He did not even seem
very ill — not interesting as a "case" any more

"ONCE KISSED." 139

than as a child. He was just ill enough to make
the tending and feeding him very troublesome, for
he was not hungry, and yet not weak enough to
lie still and endure with the wonderful patience
one sees to such a pathetic extent among little
sufferers. He was trying and tiresome to an
extent words would fail me to describe, gifted
with an almost appalling genius for making
himself odiously disagreeable, and a talent for
picking out the things most certain to annoy and
exasperate his nurses, really startling in so young
a child.

Yet he never spoke — apparently he had never
learnt to do so ; grunts, inarticulate cries, and
squeals were his only language, though, most
assuredly, he was not deaf, nor — as time went on,
this became more apparent — by any means devoid
of a strange, almost malign kind of intelligence.

Were there visitors to the hospital, and those in
charge of the ward naturally anxious to show it to
advantage, very certainly, when Esme's back was
turned, the whole of Billy's neatly arranged cot
would be upset by a scientific kick, and the young

I40 STUDIES AND STORIES.

nurse probably reprimanded for her carelessness ;
had she finished her work for the time being, and
were she starting off for a well-earned hour or
two's rest, or a refreshing walk, if there ivere any
way in which the child could, at the last moment,
delay her and give her some task to do over
again, it might be safely prophesied that he could
find it !

" He really frightens me, he is so cleverly
naughty," she said one day to a sympathizing
coadjutor.

" There are such children," was the reply. " I
have had to do with several of them ; but I confess
I have never seen any quite so bad as he. He is
like a creature without a soul, isn't he ? "

Human nature is curiously contradictory and
inconsistent. For the first time, at these words,
there crept into Esme's heart a certain sensation of
proprietorship in the changeling-like child ; a half-
involuntary thrill of indignation for him. After
all, he was her child, her charge — a faint flush rose
to her cheeks as she replied to her would-be sym-
pathizer, who, I fear, found herself in the undesir-

''ONCE kissed:' 141

able position described by the Russian proverb as
akin to that of one who meddles between husband
and wife — " as well thrust your hand between the
trunk of a tree and the bark."

" I should not like to think that ; after all, per-
haps it is only that nobody has ever loved him,"
Esme said, rather coldly.

" Nor is it likely that any one ever will, I should
say," the other nurse carelessly replied, as she
turned away.

" Poor Billy ! " said Esme, half under her breath.
She glanced at him as she spoke. He was lying
very quiet ; it struck her that he looked paler than
usual, and his eyes seemed to return her glance
with more — or a different — expression in them.
Was it that her tone had caught his ears, even if
he could not have understood the words ?

But the rest of that day brought exceptional and
absorbing work to her, so that, for the time being,
Billy and his misdemeanours almost faded from
her thoughts.

" That child is not improving as he should be
doing," was remarked to her the next day by a

142 STUDIES AND STORIES.

superior authority, and Esme, still with the softened
feeling to the boy, and with a slight misgiving that
perhaps he had sometimes been more ill than he
seemed, turned to him with special attention. But
he was naughtier than ever ! Not twice or thrice,
but times almost past counting that day, did she
make and remake his bed, and tidy up or change
the little jacket and nightshirt, on which he
managed to jerk the greater portion of the food he
would not swallow. And the weather was hot and
sultry, and Esme was tired and faint. By the
time the last of her evening duties came to be per-
formed, she felt well-nigh at an end of her strength
and courage.

" Good night, darling ! " she said, with a loving
kiss to a dear little cherub-faced creature, in the
delightful stage of "getting better every day,"
Billy's next-door neighbour ; " lie still, like a dear,
so that you may soon get to sleep, and look bright
and rosy when mother comes to-morrow."

And then she turned from the happy child to
that sad crook in her lot — " Billy."

For a wonder, he had not undone his cot since

''ONCE kissed:' 143

the last time she had straightened him, about half
an hour ago ; he was lying still, and, though she
knew it not, his eyes had been fixed on her and
little Florry next door. He looked whiter, or paler
yellow rather, than usual.

" Oh, Billy," said the girl, " you have tired your-
self out, and mc too, by being so naughty," and
something — a mingling of feelings, mental and
physical, no doubt — made the overstrained nerves
give way for once. Two or three hot tears fell on
the wizened, ugly little face she was bending over.
Then — to Esme it seemed like a miracle — she
could scarcely believe it, a small, thin, hot hand
was lifted from beneath the coverlet, and small
hot fingers gently stroked her face, each side,
slowly down both wet, flushed cheeks.

" Solly," whispered a little voice, heard by her
for the first time ; " kit Billy, too."

The tears came faster.

" Kiss you, my dear little boy — of course I will ; "
and a kiss of almost mother's love was pressed on
the poor thin face. "And Billy's going to be a
good boy now, isn't he ? so that nurse can love

144 STUDIES AND STORIES.

him and kiss him every day, like Florry and the
others."

There was no reply, only a strange little smile —
a smile that did not seem to understand itself
or what it was doing there — it only quivered and
glimmered an instant, and then Billy turned
quietly round on his side with a tiny sigh — a
sigh of satisfaction, I think.

Esme's dreams, tired as she was, were sweet
that night, and she woke in the morning with the
feeling that something pleasant had happened.
She thought of Billy as she dressed, and felt
eager to see if the transformation had lasted.

But as she went to her work, she was met in
the entrance to the ward by the nurse she was
about to replace.

" I dare say you won't be very sorry," the nurse
began, but stopped, struck by the expression
creeping into Esme's eyes, for in that moment
they had found time to dart down the long side
of the room, and to descry among the rows of
cots something unfamiliar — yet familiar, too, alas !
At a certain spot a screen was drawn closely

'' ONCE kissed:' 145

round one little bed. "That child, the changeling,
as we have sometimes called him," went on the
other, "has died in his sleep. Quite painlessly —
there was unsuspected mischief. Nothing could
have been done."

"^27/;/?"saidEsme.

"Yes, of course I mean Billy. You can see
him. He never looked half so nice before."

There was a smile on his face now — a smile,
calm and restful at last, as if it had found a home
there after all. For Billy had not left this world
without some share in his birthright of love. He
had been " once kissed."

146 STUDIES AND STORIES.

THE SEALSKIN PURSE.

AN INCIDENT FOUNDED ON FACT,

Paddington Station. A raw, chilly morning,
A crowded platform, for it is the week before
Christmas, and there is much coming and going,
notwithstanding the ungenial weather, which is
piercingly cold without the exhilaration of frost —
so cold and unpleasant indeed, <^hat every one
looks at every one else with a sort of astonish-
ment at " every one else " for being there.

" For myself (or ourselves)," so the look seems
to say, "the case is different, I (or we) being
obliged to travel for important reasons, but why
' every one else ' cannot have the common sense
to remain at home, and, at least, leave us the
station and the porters and the hot-water tins,

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 1 47

and the most comfortable seats to ourselves, is
really inexplicable."

Such, I think, was pretty much the state of
mind of a young, or youngish woman, ensconced
in a first-class compartment, and comfortably
enveloped in warm rugs and shawls, not to speak
of muff, box, and thickly lined cloak. She occu-
pied a corner seat ; opposite to her sat her husband,
and beside him his sister — a plain but kindly faced
old maid. At this lady's left, again, filling the
further corner, was the fourth member of the party,
a younger man — cousin to his three companions.

It was to his home they were all bound, there
to spend Christmas — possibly by right of his pro-
spective host-ship, possibly for other reasons, it
was evident that the three persons mentioned
treated him with special consideration, approach-
ing deference. And this was particularly notice-
able in the case of the married woman of the
party.

" So lucky," she remarked, settling herself with
complacency in her comfortable corner, "so really
delightfully lucky that we should be going down

148 STUDIES AND STORIES.

by the same train as you yourself, Teddy. And
it is all thanks to me — it was clever of me, now
wasn't it, Bernard, to have caught sight of him ?
Bernard is so absent, and Prissy so absurdly near-
sighted, that they would never have seen you,
Teddy."

The repetition of the familiar abbreviation of
his Christian name seemed to afford her peculiar
satisfaction. In this, and in a faint — the very
faintest suspicion of a tone, rather than accent,
not of the very purest quality — the lady, in spite of
her rich, and, it must be allowed, tasteful attire and
undeniable good looks, betrayed that she herself
was not altogether to the manner born. And
such was the fact — the marriage of Miss Nora
Newton, one of the several pretty daughters of a
country solicitor, to Mr. Bernard Mallory, a man
of good birth and considerable wealth, had been
a decided rise in the social scale for the young
lady. And such rises are sometimes apt to turn
the head — to engender a certain dizziness, a
curious loss of the sense of proportion in the
subject of them.

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 1 49

But Bernard was a sensible man — a man with
small social ambition and entirely untouched by
snobbishness in any of its insidious forms. Under
his influence, Mrs. Bernard kept her feet, and
gradually, except under unusual provocation,
sobered down into a handsome matron of
sufficiently well-bred manners. Still she was
spoilt and self-assertive, and not specially good-
tempered. And her husband was easy-going, too
easy-going — and in ordinary life, too yielding.
He shut his eyes to many things in his wife
which he could have wished otherwise. On
the present occasion she was trying him con-
siderably by her exaggeration of friendly intimacy
with his cousin, Edric Mallory, the head of the
family, recently returned from some years' ex-
patriation in the Diplomatic Service, and intro-
duced to Mrs. Bernard for the first time. " Teddy "
he had always been, and would always be, to his
cousins, but to a cousin's wife, " Nora really might
show better taste," thought her husband, with a
slight compression of the lips. But Sir Edric took
it philosophically, and gentle Miss Prissy seemed

150 STUDIES AND STORIES.

happily unconscious of any failure in taste or tact
on her sister-in-law's part, so Bernard let it pass.

Sir Edric Mallory was a person of consequence.
This was his first Christmas at home since the
family honours had devolved on him, and he was
full of hospitable intentions. For the sake of the
cousin, to whom he was much attached, he put up
with the cousin's wife — thus did it come about
that the party of four was travelling down to
Mallory Park, greatly to Mrs. Bernard's delight,
there to spend the last days of the year, with the
prospect of a pleasantly full house and various
festivities in the neighbourhood.

"Yes," Sir Edric was replying to his cousin-
by-marriage, in answer to her eager questions, " oh
yes, there are two or three balls on hand. The
Hunt Ball at Darting' next week is always a good
one, and "

He was interrupted. It wanted yet some few
minutes to the time of departure of the train, and
Mrs. Mallory looked up irritably as the door
opened, letting in a chill draught of air from the
outside.

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 151

" I hope to goodness no one is coming in upon
us," she said. "We are four already — can't we
keep "

But it was too late. A porter was already
standing in the carriage, stowing away various
properties in the rack.

" There is plenty of room in here, ma'am," he
called back to two ladies on the platform ; " two
empty seats."

An anxious face peered through the open door-
way.

" Oh, thank you — yes, I think that will do
nicely. Cissy, my dear, I think you will do very
well in here. You like sitting with your back to
the engine ? "

" Yes, I do, aunty. Please don't worry about
me," replied a second voice — that of a young girl
this time, who proceeded, as the porter made his
exit, to mount up into the carriage. But she did
not settle into her place at once ; she leant out of
the window, for the porter by this time had closed
the door, for a last word or two with the first
speaker, an elderly woman in plain, almost dowdy

152 STUDIES AND STORIES.

attire. The colloquy was distinctly audible to
those inside.

" I shall be so anxious till I hear of your arrival,"
said the elderly lady.

" I will write to-night ; and please don't be
anxious. I am sure, after all, it was best to come
first-class," said the girl.

"And take the middle seat — be sure you do.
There is always a draught near the window ; and
you must not catch another cold."

The girl laughed reassuringly.

"Dear aunty, my last cold was nothing at all.
Besides, I am sure Miss Toppin would be very
good to me if I had a cold. But I will take the
middle seat, I promise you."

Then came the last warning voice.

" Take your seats, please," and the parting sum-
mons, " Tickets ; " and in another moment the
door had received its final bang, and the train was
slowly moving out of the station.

But Miss Cissy was not yet settled. The porter
had deposited her smaller belongings in the corner
seat, the centre one being quite filled up by the

XHE SEALSKIN PURSE. I 53

property of Mrs. Mallory, overflowing from the
lady herself, next door. The girl glanced at her
neighbour questioningly.

"This seat is not engaged, I think," she said.
" May I move your dressing-bag and the other
things to the corner one ? "

The request caused Mrs. Mallory's wrath to ex-
plode. All this time she had been indulging in
semi " asides " of by no means an amiable
character.

"Too bad, Bernard; can't you insist on our
having the compartment to ourselves ? " " They
have no right to keep that door open, I tell you ;
or, " I believe they are third-class passengers try-
ing to get in here," were among the mildest of her
remarks.

And when the new-comer turned to her with
her not unreasonable request, she started almost
in horror, at the way in which it was received.

"Certainly not. I cannot allow any of my
things to be touched. If you do not like the corner
seat, you can change carriages at the next station,"
said Mrs. Mallory.

154 STUDIES AND STORIES.

The giiTs face blanched. For half a moment
she wondered if the handsome, prosperous-looking
woman beside her was quite in her right mind ;
and she glanced across at Bernard and his sister
with a sort of inquiry. For she had never before
in her life travelled alone, and even sensible
people's nerves are sometimes affected by the
stories of railway adventures so often related.

Then she gazed at Mrs. Mallory in a kind of
blank amazement, with a vague expectation that
some word of apology would follow her rude speech.

The apology came, but not from Nora.

" Allow me to move the things," said her hus-
band ; and the moment the girl heard his voice
she knew that she had a gentleman to deal with.
" The centre seat is quite as much at your disposal
as the other. Nora'' in a tone that made his wife
start as she seldom did, " be so good as to draw
that rug more your way."

Then Cecil spoke. With the quick instinct of
regret for having caused annoyance, however un-
wittingly, inherent in a refined and sensitive nature,
she turned to Bernard.

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 1 55

" I am so sorry," she said. " It is only that I
promised my aunt to take the middle seat. Oh,
really, I am so sorry to disturb you all."

For by this time Miss Prissy, and not Miss
Prissy only, but Sir Edric, too, had come to her
assistance. Miss Prissy was fussily endeavouring
to make room for some of her sister-in-law's be-
longings beside herself — Sir Edric was more suc-
cessfully transferring them to the corner seat
opposite his own. So by degrees things righted
themselves — to outward seeming, at least. The
offended Nora, her cheeks burning with indigna-
tion, subsided behind a book ; her husband, with
the compressed look about his lips which to those
who knew him well meant much, turned to his
sister with some commonplace remark, to which
Miss Prissy replied with nervous eagerness ; Sir
Edric unfolded a newspaper, and leant back as if
absorbed in its contents, though he skilfully
managed from time to time to steal a look from
behind its shelter at the young traveller whose
advent had created such excitement.

" By Jove ! " he said to himself, " if I had known

IS6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

that poor Bernard's wife was so utterly ill-bred, I
should have thought twice about inviting them to
Mallory. Can she not see that the girl is entirely
and absolutely a lady ? And even if it had not
been so "

But before long he forgot about Nora in the
interest with which he furtively watched the occu-
pant of the seat opposite Miss Prissy's. Her
young face looked very grave, almost stern, though
it was easy to see that such was not its habitual
expression, for all the lines were curved and
gracious. She was more than pretty. But it was
a kind of beauty that was not likely to be done
justice to at the first glance. It grew upon you,
especially if you had good taste and some real
notion of what real beauty is.

Mrs. Bernard Mallory, in her hasty glance at the
new-comer, had been quite unimpressed, and her
amazement would have been great had she known
the opinion arrived at by both her husband (for
he, too, was noticing the girl) and his cousin, as to
the charms of the quiet, grave occupant of the
centre seat.

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. I 57

In her dark, close-fitting, rough tweed dress,
Cecil might have been a duchess or a daily
governess. It suited Mrs. Mallory to dub her in
her own mind the latter, and Bernard too. from
the allusion to going first-class which had been
overheard, somehow decided that their fellow-
traveller was poor.

" All the more unpardonable of Nora to be so
rude and ill-natured," he reflected. " I do trust
Teddy did not notice it much."

No ; at least, whether Sir Edric had noticed it
much or not, his thoughts were now elsewhere —
more pleasantly engaged. He was looking back-
wards and forwards, and to be able to do both
these things with a smile on one's face, we must
be, if not exceedingly young and inexperienced,
the owner of several desirable things. A well-
balanced mind first and foremost perhaps ; a con-
science on the whole void of offence ; an unselfish
and healthy nature. And all these were his, and
added thereto various material advantages, as I
have said, not to be despised.

More, however, was wanting. Edric Mallory

158 STUDIES AND STORIES.

was very much alone in the world, and he was
affectionate and the reverse of conceited. He
longed to be cared for, for himself. The smile
which had flitted across his face once or twice as
he sat there reviewing the past owed its origin to
the remembrance of certain youthful experiences
when he had been less on his guard than he
was now, more ready to believe in disinterested
motives, in a word, less worldly wise ; the smile
that woke up at the vision, vague and dreamy
though it was, of a possible future, of the at last
lighting on the pearl within the shell, was of a
different nature, tender and almost reverent.

Why had such thoughts come to him just then ?
Was the sight of a sweet girl face, pure and noble
in its simple dignity, enough to explain these
waking dreams ? Edric could almost have laughed
aloud at himself.

"I had no idea I was so fantastic and senti-
mental," he said to himself; "it is really absurd.
But — perhaps her face reminds me of some one —
or of some picture — it is an uncommon face. I
am certain she is a girl of great character as well

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. I 59

as sweetness, and she looks so c^ood, so sincere —
I can't find the right word. I wonder if she is a
governess " (somehow they had all hit on the same
idea), " going to her first situation, perhaps. I
hope she will be happy. Now, if one could get to
know a girl like that in a natural simple sort of
way, how much surer one would be than meeting
girls in the rush of society — dancing and talking
small talk, or in the w^hirl of a great country-house
party."

Cecil had taken a book out of her bag, and was
reading, quietly and gravely as she Jiad done
everything so far. And Sir Edric had presumed
somewhat rashly on the fact that her eyes were
cast down. He had been looking at her pretty
steadily for a moment or two. Suddenly she
glanced up, their eyes met, and her face flushed -
deeply. The young man felt inexpressibly
annoyed.

" What a set of boors she must think us," he
said to himself, as his own colour deepened.

But before he had time to consider if by any
possible diplomacy he could suggest any excuse

l60 STUDIES AND STORIES.

for his apparent rudeness, the train slackened,
and, glancing out. Sir Edric saw that they were
close to the junction where they had to change
carriages. The usual little bustle ensued. Bags,
rugs, umbrellas, and books were collected. Mrs.
Mallory's maid presented herself at the door, and
was duly loaded, and the young stranger, left
behind for a moment, soon got out and followed
the stream of passengers down the platform.

Sir Edric was some little way in the rear of
Bernard and his wife. A glance had told him
that their fellow-traveller was coming after them
though still further back ; she was carrying her
small baggage herself with a somewhat perturbed
expression, the fact being that in her experience
she had not hailed a porter quickly enough.

" Poor thing ! " thought the young man, annoyed
at the impossibility of being able to help her;
" she has to consider * tips,' evidently. If Nora was
a kindly natured woman, she might have "

But what Nora might have done was lost in
what Nora did do. Suddenly, Sir Edric became
aware that his cousin and his wife had turned

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. l6l

back and were bearing down upon him, walking
very fast, the lady's face flushed and anxious.

" I have lost my purse," she exclaimed, as
they drew near him. " Bernard, do hurry on
and look in the railway carriage. Teddy will
take care of me."

Mr. Mallory hastened forward.

" It is so provoking," said Nora. " I have a
good deal of money in it, and I know I had it in
the carriage, for I opened it to pay for a Christ-
mas number that the newsboy brought to the
door. I thought I put it back in my pocket,
but Oh, by-the-by, here is that girl "

For as she spoke they came face to face with
Cecil. Mrs. Mallory stopped abruptly.

" I have lost my purse," she said, addressing the
young girl, without preface or apology, " a small
sealskin purse with gilt fittings, and a lot of money
in it. You left the carriage after us. I am sure
it was on the seat. Did you sec it .'' "

Cecil hesitated. She was startled, and for the
first moment scarcely took in the sense of the
words.

M

1 62 STUDIES AND STORIES

" A sealskin purse ! " she repeated slowly, in
the rather meaningless way one is apt mechani-
cally to repeat what one hears, when slightly
dazed or confused by a sudden or unexpected
demand.

" Yes. I said so — a sealskin purse',' Nora re-
peated, waxing more and more impatient. " Ah,
here is Bernard," and for a moment her face lit
up with hope ; " have you found it .'' "

He shook his head.

" No, it is positively not there. I looked myself,
and the porter looked. It can't be helped. Per-
haps you will find it, after all, among some of your
traps."

But Nora was not to be so smoothed down.

" Nonsense," she said. *' It is not in my pocket,
and that is the only place it could have been in.
I did not put it in my bag. I never do. It was
on the seat beside me. I am more and more
certain of it — the seat this — " and she moved to
Cecil, who was still standing there, as if, somehow
or other, the matter concerned her — " this lady " —
with a visible hesitation™ " took, when she moved

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 1 63

all my things. And you have not answered me
yet," she went on, addressing Cecil again directly ;
" did you see my purse ? "

" No, indeed," the girl replied. " Of course, had
I done so, I would have told you at once."

" You said nothing," Mrs. Mallory persisted.
" You seemed stupefied ; you stood there repeating
my words. Now think better of it. You must
have seen my purse."

Her voice was rising, so was her temper. The
altercation, or what looked very like one, was
beginning to attract the attention of those about
them. Miss Prissy murmured, " Oh, Nora, my dear.
Oh, don't, Nora," and appeared on the verge
of tears. Sir Edric's eyes flashed fire, and he, as
well as Bernard, was on the point of speaking,
when Cecil's voice, calm but clear, made itself
heard. She was putting immense control on
herself.

" I am sorry for you," she said, " because the
loss seems to have made you forget yourself, and
so I tell you once more tJiat I ficver saiu your
purse'' and she looked at them all — all four, as if

164 STUDIES AND STORIES.

from some unapproachable height, and then walked
slowly away towards where, far to the front of the
platform on the other side, the other train was
waiting for its passengers.

" Nora," said her husband between his teeth,
" I am utterly ashamed of you."

Sir Edric said nothing.

Half an hour or so later, when they reached their
ultimate destination, he saw the girl again. She
was walking with another old lady, who had
evidently come to meet her, an old lady, plainer
and dowdier even than her escort to Paddington.
They were talking eagerly, but the old woman's
face was beaming with smiles, and the girl's eyes
shone brightly. Evidently she was telling of no
disagreeable adventures.

" It scarcely looks as if she were a governess,"
mused Sir Edric. " At least, if that old party is
the mistress of a boarding school, she seems un-
commonly kind and jolly. Perhaps, after all,
slie'' — with a curious catch in his breath — "is not
to be pitied. She deserves to be happy, that I
could swear to. But oh — that woman — I could

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 165

never venture to look in that girl's face again if
I met her every day for a year."

He smothered a sigh. And during the drive
from the station to Mallory he was very grave
and silent and preoccupied — so much so that he
scarcely noticed Nora's defiant allusion to the
shameful episode of the journey.

" You saw the sort of woman that came to meet
that girl," she remarked to Miss Prissy. " A re-
gular old dowdy, like a servant. And she kissed
the girl. I told you she was not a lady in the
least. Such people have no business to travel
first-class, as I know to my cost. Such a thing
should not be passed over."

Butter remarks met with no response.
« « « • «

Cecil's " Miss Topping," the plain-looking,
happy-faced old lady who had met her at the
station, was a former governess of her mother's.
She had known Miss Topping all her life, and
loved her dearly. In return, the good lady
adored her, and this two days' visit from the
young girl had been her dream for many a day.

1 66 STUDIES AND STORIES.

" So good of you — so sweet of you — to have
come to me instead of going straight to Darting
Priory," she said, as she bade Cecil good night
that evening, having inquired, for the twentieth
time, if there was nothing more she could do to
make up for the absence of the maid, for whom
there was no accommodation in her tiny dwelling,
" You are sure you are comfortable ? I can't get
over the idea of your having travelled alone for
the first time in your life, all to give pleasure to
poor me."

"And to myself, dear Miss Topping," said the
girl. " I am very glad to be with you."

So she was. There is nothing that makes one
more truly happy than to realize that one is giving
pleasure to others. And as she sat there over
the cosy fire in her little bedroom, she felt glad to
think that she had had the self-control not to re-
late to her old friend the disagreeable episode in
her journey.

" She would have taken it so to heart," thought
Cecil ; " and, after all, what does it matter ? That
woman was really dreadful — not the least bit of a

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 167

lady, and yet her husband seemed nice — and — the
other man was — yes, I think he was nice, too. I
don't think he meant to be rude. And the name
on the luggage — how did I come to see it ? Oh
yes ; it was on the dressing-bag — seemed a good
one — ' Mallory/ ' Mallory Park.' I suppose it is
some plaec near this. I will ask Miss Topping,
just out of curiosity."

But her face flushed again in spite of herself, as
she thought over the day's adventure.

" How dared she ? " thought Cecil.

She was a little tired, and, in spite of the fire, a
little chilly. Her fur-lined cloak was hanging
near her. Cecil stretched out her hand to reach
it, and, in drawing it towards her, turned it half
upside down. As she did so, something fell with
a slight clatter on the ground.

" Can I have left something in the pocket } " she
thought. The cloak had large, rather loose pockets
on the outside. She felt inside one. No, it was
empty ! But — her fingers strayed further. Some
stitches had given way, making a sort of little
second pocket below the other, between the layers

1 68 STUDIES AND STORIES.

of the lining. ' Whatever it is that dropped out,
must have been caught in this hole. I wonder
what it can be," thought Cecil, her mind rapidly
running through the list of her smaller possessions,
till, to satisfy herself, she stooped down and began
groping on the floor. She had not to grope long
—almost immediately her hand came in contact
with a small object, both hard and soft, and,
raising it to the light, the astonished girl saw that
it was a sealskin purse — a small sealskin purse —
of first-rate quality, with gilt fittings, and, as it was
easy to feel, well filled to boot.

Cecil's face grew crimson, and then terribly
white.

" That woman's purse," she gasped, in unspeak-
able horror.

How had it come there ? Who can tell .-' Who
can tell how these materially extraordinary things
do happen — how hooks embody themselves in the
wrong places with complications of ingenuity,
which it would take hours of labour for our clumsy
fingers to achieve ; how a coin, carelessly dropped,
will seek for itself the one crevice in the parquet

THE SEALSKLV PURSE. 1 69

floor, through which it could descend to the mys-
terious depths "under the boards," or hide itself
beneath the one immovable piece of furniture in
the room ? How the purse had come there, Cecil
could only conjecture. It might have been lying
on the arm between the seats, and slipped on to
her lap, and thence into her pocket. It might
have — but there was no use in thinking how this
wretched mischance had come to pass. It was so
— that was enough.

Then ensued some minutes of painful reflection.
What was to be done ? She would not confide in
poor Miss Topping, and spoil the good lady's day
or two of fete — that was certain.

"I will tell mamma all about it when I get
home," she decided unselfishly. " Till then I will
bear it alone."

But the purse must be restored to its owner.
As to this, there was no practical difficulty, for
Cecil had seen the address. Should she send it
anonymously ? No ; the girl's whole instincts re-
volted at the thought.

" I have done nothing wrong, nothing even

I/O STUDIES AND STORIES.

foolish," she said to herself, " and I will not seem
ashamed. I will send it back openly, with a note
signed by myself."

But how to find a trustworthy messenger with-
out confiding in her hostess ? There was the post ;
but to send money — perhaps a considerable sum-
by post, Cecil scarcely thought secure.

" I must find some way in the morning,"
she thought. And then, with a resolute determi-
nation not to dwell upon the unlucky accident in
any exaggerated fashion, poor Cecil undressed
and went to bed — to bed — and, after a while, to
sleep, though her dreams were so uncomfortable
and disturbed that, when morning came, she felt
but little rested or refreshed.

Miss Topping was nearsighted, and it was easy
to put on sufficient cheerfulness to satisfy her.

" Where is Mallory Park ? " Cecil succeeded in
asking in an ordinary tone. " Isn't it somewhere
near here ? "

" Not a quarter of a mile out of the town,"
said Miss Topping. " The Mallory Road is the
prettiest side of Burnham, and the Park is a

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. I71

very beautiful place. Perhaps you have met Sir
Edric Mallory ? No, by-the-by, that is scarcely
likely. He has only lately returned from Japan
or elsewhere."

Cecil evaded a direct answer, but her thoughts
were busy, as her old friend chattered on. Only
a quarter of a mile ! A sudden resolution seized
her.

" I should like to go a little walk this morning,"
she said. "It is fine and bright, though cold. A
walk after a railway journey always does me
good."

Miss Topping's face fell.

"This morning, my love? I am so sorry. I
thought of lunching early and going out imme-
diately after ; but this morning — I promised to
stay in to see a servant whom one of my nieces
wants to engage. It won't take five minutes, but
unluckily I don't know exactly when she will
call."

" Then let mc go a short walk by myself, and
we can have a longer one together after luncheon.
No, no, you needn't shake your head — mamma

172 STUDIES AND STORIES.

would not mind in a tiny place like this. Why,
it's only a village, really ! I shall not be long
— it will take away the scrap of headache I
have."

She carried her point. An hour later, having
well informed herself as to the way she must
take, Cecil, in her dark tweed, her face paler than
usual, her heart beating fast beneath her calm
exterior, was entering Mallory Park, through the
great gates opening on to the road of the same
name.

It was still early. The four Mallorys, for as
yet no other guests had arrived, were lingering
round the breakfast-table, when a message was
brought to Mrs. Mallory.

" A young lady," said the footman, " is asking
to see you. Her name is Miss Wood, and she
wished me to say it was about something
important."

"Miss Wood," repeated Nora. "Who can it
be ? Do you know any one of the name here-
abouts, Teddy ? "

Sir Edric shook his head.

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. l^l

" Is she rea//)f a lady ? " inquired Mrs. Mallory,
turning to the footman. The young man glanced
at his superior the butler, who just then entered
the room.

"Mr. Dickinson," he said, "was crossing the
hall when the lady rang ; perhaps he could "

Mr. Dickinson came forward.

" A lady," he repeated. " Were you asking if it
was a lady ? Undoubtedly so, ma'am, as you
request my opinion."

Nora was a little, or a good deal, in awe of
Dickinson. She rose — ** I suppose I must sec
her, but what a bore it is. So early — I can't
understand it. In the library, did you say ? " and
the footman repeated the words affirmatively.
" You are more confiding in the country, I sup-
pose," she said, laughingly to her host, as he too
rose from his chair. " In London we have to be
cautious whom we admit."

A few minutes passed. Sir Edric and Mr.
Mallory were standing by the window, discussing
the weather. Miss Prissy was collecting crumbs for
the poor little half-starved birds on the terrace,

174 STUDIES AND STORIES.

when the door was flung open and Nora burst
in. Her cheeks were very red, her eyes very
sparkling, nevertheless the effect of the whole
was far from pleasing.

" Bernard, Prissy, Teddy," she exclaimed. " Now
I hope you will do me justice. See here," and to
her astonished hearers she held up — a small seal-
skin purse.

" Your purse," said her husband, " and its
contents ? "

" Yes — at least I hope so. I have not counted
thoroughly yet. She says she has not opened it ;
but of course I know better than to believe that,
and "

" But who is ' she ' ? " asked Sir Edric, with a
strange, painful foreboding.

" ' She ' ? Why, that girl, of course — the gover-
ness, or whatever she is or pretends to be, who
travelled with us yesterday, and whom you all
thought me so cruel to. Nozv, I hope, you will
change your opinion."

" But you don't — you can't mean to say she
took your purse. And if she did, why has she

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 1 75

brought it back?" asked the young man ; and had
his cousin's wife been less absorbed, she would
have seen that his face was paler than usual.
She gave a disagreeable laugh.
"A bad conscience, I suppose. Fear of dis-
covery, perhaps — she may have found out who
we were," Nora replied.

" And she has confessed to it ? " exclaimed
Edrie, unutterably shocked. " Impossible ! "

" Confessed — oh, bless you, no — of course not.
How absurdly innocent you are, Teddy ! She
has some cock-and-bull story of finding it in the
lining of her cloak, which I let her narrate ; then
I quietly requested her to consider herself at my
mercy, and not to attempt to escape till I con-
sulted all of you. So she is there in the library —
I left the door ajar, and gave George a hint to stay
about the hall."

Bernard's lips drew together. He glanced at
his cousin.

" Teddy," he said, " come with me."

They left the room together, followed by Nora.

" I reminded her that you — the owner here — are

1^6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

a magistrate," she remarked to Sir Edric, trium-
phantly. " I am glad you seem inclined to take
it seriously. Such things should not be slurred
over."

Cecil was standing by the library table ; she
was trembling terribly, but she stood erect, dis-
daining to seek any support. One glance at her
face made both the men feel that they wished
the floor could open at their feet. And it was
Cecil who first spoke.

"You are a magistrate, this lady tells me," she
said, addressing Sir Edric. " That is why I have
waited here as she told me. I will tell you both
— you two men — what I have told her, and then
I will go, leaving you to deal with her as you
choose. It is nothing to me — only — I did not
think there were such people in the world," and
here, with a gasping quiver she all but broke
down.

Bernard pushed a chair towards her. She
shook her head.

" No, no, not in this house," she said.

Then with marvellous self-control she repeated

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. l^J

her story, calmly and precisely. " I came myself,"
she said in conclusion, " because I did not want
my friend here to know how unfortunate my
first experience of a journey alone had been, as
it was made for her sake. When I g^o home, I
will tell everything to my father and mother."

" Why — knowing the material you had to deal
with — why in Heaven's name did you not send the
wretched thing by a messenger ? " burst out Sir
Edric.

" I only thought of what was safest — and — of
course I was not afyaid" she replied simply,
rearing her proud little head as she spoke. " And
now I will go."

Mrs. Mallory sprang forward.

" Bernard," she ejaculated, " you arc not going
to allow this. And you," to Sir ^dric, " you, a
magistrate. It is conniving at "

" Nora," shouted her husband, " are you mad? "

Cecil crossed the hall straight towards the
entrance. She did not see that she was followed
— and by her host. He opened the door himself,
and stood beside it.

N

178 STUDIES AND STORIES.

" May I not — " he began, in such painful agi-
tation that the girl's kind heart was touched.
" May I not beg you, entreat you, to — to try to
forget it ? That it happened in my house is
enough to make me hate the place for ever. We
may never meet again, but will you not let me
say how I admire you — your courage, your "

"Thank you," she said, "it was not your fault,
I know," and with a sudden impulse of generous
pity, she held out her hand.

He touched it, for an instant, as if it was that
of an empress bestowing pardon.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

The Darting Hunt Ball was to be a very good
one that year. Chilly and raw as was the weather,
frost had as yet held off, and the neighbourhood
was full of the devotees of fox-hunting. All the
houses, big and little, which were ever let for the
winter season had been taken — the great residents
had found no difficulty in arranging their house-
parties.

Mallory was overflowing with guests, and Mrs.
Bernard Mallory, whom Sir Edric could not in

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 1 79

common courtesy to his cousin have refrained
from inviting to do the honours for him, was in
the seventh heaven of self-important deh'ght.
What had passed between her husband and her-
self with regard to her outrageous behaviour to
their young fellow-traveller, had never transpired.
For a day or two she had been somewhat subdued
in manner, and increasingly deferential to Sir
Edric, and as she had really seen too little of him
to know that the almost freezing politeness with
which he treated her, was not his usual and
natural bearing, she became by degrees comfort-
ably satisfied tl/at he had forgotten the dis-
agreeable episode, nay, not improbably, in his
heart convinced that she had been all along in
the right !

" Men never like to be put in the wrong, you
know," she observed shrewdly to Miss Prissy, "so
I don't wonder that Teddy avoids the subject,
otherwise I would have told him that the money
was quite correct. None had been taken. Miss
Wood — what a common name ! — most likely she
chose it on purpose— I don't suppose for an instant

l8o STUDIES AND STORIES.

it was her real name — Miss Wood must have
really got frightened and conscience-stricken."

But Priscilla Mallory received her sister-in-law's
confidences unwillingly.

" For goodness' sake, Nora," she said uneasily,
"leave the subject. I cannot endure the thought

of it, and I have now and then a nervous

dread that we have not heard the last of it."

" What on earth do you mean ? " asked Mrs.
Bernard.

" Oh," Prissy replied. " I — I dare say it is all
my fancy ; but do you know, Nora, when we were
driving home the other day — the day of the meet
we could not go to, you remember — I had an idea
that I saw — her — Miss Wood, in a pony-cart."

" Well, and what if you did ? Governesses often
drive about in carts," replied Nora, scornfully.

" But supposing — supposing she is in some very
good family in the neighbourhood, and that she
told the story, and it got about" said Priscilla,
lowering her tone.

"My dear Prissy," exclaimed her sister-in-law.
" How ridiculous you are ! What if it did get

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. l8l

about ? If she told such a disgraceful story against
herself she would find herself sent to the right-
about— the girl would not be so mad. The only
thing I feel ashamed of is the having let her off as
easily as we did."

But Priscilla said nothing.

A large party went to the ball from Mallory
Park. Mrs. Bernard Mallory was resplendent ;
with certain people her loud, rather boisterous,
gaiety passed muster as exuberant good nature,
and her vanity being excessive, for the moment
the good nature was genuine.

She had danced once or twice, and the room
was filling fast, when a chance remark from her
partner infused one drop of gall into her cup of
triumph.

" The Darting Manor people arc late this even-
ing," he said. " They are not a very large party,
on account of Lady Frances not being quite well
again yet. I fear she will have to go abroad, after
all. Have you seen her lately } "

Mrs, Bernard Mallory murmured something
indefinite — Lady Frances Greatorex was almost

1 82 STUDIES AND STORIES.

the only neighbour of any standing who had not
called upon her.

" I am anxious to meet one of their guests," the
young man went on. " A daughter of Lord
Mayor's is staying at the Manor. They are
cousins, you know. This girl is charming — I
was introduced to her in the summer, and she
dances exquisitely — she is the only daughter —
Cecil W ."

But at that instant something caught his atten-
tion, and being rather a rattle, his sentence was
never completed.

Nora's wits set to work on the problem of how
to make Lady Frances's acquaintance.

"If Teddy would but give a dance," she thought,
" she would have to call on me. I do hope no
one will find out I don't know her. I must get
Prissy to point her out."

And she turned to look for her sister in-law.
She had not long to wait — as if conscious of her
wish, almost at the same moment Miss Priscilla
made her appearance, hurrying towards her as fast
as the crowded room would allow. But what

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 1S5

was the matter ? Prissy looked strangely pale.
Surely she was not going to faint, or any nonsense
like that, and spoil all their pleasure ?

" Nora," she whispered, as soon as she was
within hearing. " Come aside somewhere with
me. I have something very particular to say to
you."

Half alarmed, half annoyed, Mrs. Bernard Mal-
lory followed her to a quiet corner.

"Nora," gasped the poor woman, suffering
vicariously for what she, at least, was entirely inno-
cent of, " Nora, I have just seen the Darting
Manor party — they came while the last dance
was going on. And — who do you think is with
them ? "

Nora's eyes opened to their widest.

" How should I know ? What are you talking
about ? " she replied querulously.

" It is — that girl — the girl you insulted so.
What shall we do ? "

" The governess ! " exclaimed Nora, though she
grew perceptibly paler. " What are they think-
incf of?"

1 84 STUDIES AND STORIES.

" Governess, nonsense," said patient Prissy, losing
her temper at last. " That was only your absurd
fancy. She is — do you hear me, Nora ? she is
Miss Wode — W-o-d-c — Lord Mayor's daughter.
Cecil Wode, whom every one thinks so lovely,
and everj/ one knows that the Mavors are perfect
models of goodness and excellence."

Nora caught hold of the back of a chair.

" Prissy," she said, " help me to go home. Say
I have fainted, or — or anything you like."

Poor woman ! No saying was necessary, for
as she spoke, the fainting very nearly became a
fact, and she fell back all but unconscious on the
chair beside her. And at that instant a girl, on
the arm of her host and partner, Mr. Greatorex
of Darting, entered the room. It was Cecil
Wode.

" What is the matter } " she exclaimed. " Oh —
she has only fainted. No, no," as she put aside
poor Prissy, and her well-meant but clumsy efforts,
" not like that. Don't try to prop her up. Lay
her quite flat. I will see to her."

And when Nora came to herself, the face bend-

THE SEALSKIN PURSE. 1 85

ing over her seemed indeed like that of an aveng-
ing angel.

But in reply to her whispered tremulous attempt
at apology and gratitude, came some words which
were her best restorative.

" I know you must be sorry. I have told no
one, for — for your family's sake. And I promise
you never to tell any one."

Mrs. Bernard Mallory did not stay as late as
she had intended, but she recovered herself suffi-
ciently to return to the dancing-room, where she
sat quietly in a corner on the plea of not feeling
well. And she certainly looked very pale.

Words would fail mc to describe Sir Edric's
sensations when, standing beside his cousin's wife,
and addressing her with evident friendliness, he
recognized — Miss Wood !

Later in the evening, he found himself being
introduced to her, and meeting no resentment in
her eyes, he ventured to ask her for a dance.

What passed between them during that dance
with regard to the painful story Cecil had so

1 86 STUDIES AND STORIES.

generously promised to bury for ever, concerns
us not.

" Try to be sorry for her, do — for — for my sake,
may I say ? " were Miss Wode's last words.

Some few months later a passing sensation was
created in the world of society by the announce-
ment of the engagement of Edric Mallory and
Cecil Wode. It was not a very brilliant marriage
for the only child and heiress of Lord Mavor, but
it proved to be in the best sense of the word a
happy one — which surely is far better ?

Sir Edric had found his pearl — thanks to a ridi-
culous little sealskin purse !

( i87 )

THE ABB AYE BE CEB/SV*

In the spring of this present year — 1889 — two
ladies were seated together one afternoon talking
comfortably, as they sipped their " five-o'clock
tea." Five-o'clock tea is, or was, at least, a
thoroughly English institution, but it is no longer
unknown to our neighbours across the Channel.
And a glance — a glance of the slightest and
shortest, would have shown any one that this
special refection was not being enjoyed in an
English drawing-room or boudoir.

The room was small, oblong in shape, the whole
of one end being occupied by a rather large
window, or glazed door, opening on to a balcony.
From this balcony one had a good view of a wide,
quaint, hilly street, with high walls on each side,

* The incident here related is perfectly true. The Abbaye de
Cerisy is the real name of the place where the strange recluse was
seen.

1 88 STUDIES AND STORIES.

in which, at irregular intervals, were visible the
great portes-cochh-es leading into the coach-yards
of the spacious old mansions or hotels, of the
gentry still resident in an old town of Nor-
mandy. Here and there stood a more modest
dwelling-house, guiltless of coiir (though not
of jardin at the back), whose front-door steps
ran straight down to the pavement. It was a
very picturesque street, from every point of view,
and the long, level rays of the afternoon sun
showed it to peculiar advantage.

Inside the boudoir, it was difficult to believe
one's self still in the nineteenth century. The room
was entirely lined with wood — light-coloured
brown wood — into the panels of which were in-
serted Louis XVI. paintings of the quaintest
description : cupids, nymphs, garden and terrace
landscapes, grotesque statues, grinning masks ; all
the well-known decorative designs of the period,
from the attribtits de jardinage and those of
imisiq7ie also, with their bows of impossible
blue ribbon, to an armless satyr or a ring of
dancing " loves." The furniture, of which there

THE ABB AYE DE CERISY. 1 89

was not much, and indeed the space was very
small, was mostly of the same date ; a small brass-
mounted, marble-topped bureau occupied one
corner ; two or three medallion-backed, white-
painted chairs stood about.

With this background, the little English tea-
table, and the two friends seated — on easier chairs
than the Louis XVI. fauteuils — were scarcely in
keeping. But the cups and saucers were of old
Sevres ; and the snow-white hair, drawn back from
the forehead, of the elder of the two ladies — a
woman of sixty or thereabouts — simply though
richly dressed in black, with touches of creamy
old lace here and there, harmonized with the
whole, or rather seemed a sort of meeting-point
for the past and the present. This lady was the
Marquise de Romars ; her companion, consider-
ably younger than herself, was her visitor, and an
Englishwoman, by name Miss Poynsett.

Miss Poynsett was on her way home from a
winter spent in the south ; she had lingered,
nothing loth, to pass a few days with her hospit-
able old friend.

IQO STUDIES AND STORIES,

" Then there is really no chance of my seeing
you again this year, my dear Clemency?" said
the old lady.

Miss Poynsett shook her head. '' None what-
ever, unless you will come over to us."

" That I cannot. But I had hoped the exhibi-
tion, the Eiffel Tower, and all the rest of it, would
have tempted some of you to Paris ; and, of course,
it is easy to make this a half-way, or three-quarters-
way house," said Madame de Romars — who, by
the way, spoke perfect English — insinuatingly.

Again Miss Poynsett shook her head, more
vigorously this time.

" If a visit to you were not temptation enough,
certainly Paris in a state of exhibition would not
be," she said, half laughingly. " I cannot bear
exhibitions, and Paris, with a world's show going
on, is worst of all. Just think of how one would
be running up against everybody one had ever seen
or heard of. Not that I am unsociable ; but one
doesn't leave one's own country to see one's own
country-folk. When I travel, I like to see new
things and people."

THE ABB AYE DE CERISY. IQI

"The exhibition would be new, and the Eiffel
Tower has certainly never been seen before," said
Madame de Romars, in a matter-of-fact tone.

" Dear madamc, I think the Eiffel Tower has
bewitched you," replied her friend. " I have not
the very slightest wish to see it nor the ex-
hibition. And then the association. I should
have thought you would have shrunk from any
commemoration of the horrors of a hundred years
ago."

The old lady did not at once reply.

" This year actually commemorates the destruc-
tion of the Bastille," she said, after a little pause.
"With tJiat one can have full sympathy. As for

what came afterwards " she sighed deeply.

" One of the most grievous thoughts about the
great Revolution," she went on — "even, in the
widest sense, more grievous than the terrible in-
dividual horrors, is what it might have been and
done ; what enormous opportunities for the world's
good were lost at that time. For the individual
suffering is over and past, and doubtless it made
saints and martyrs of many who might otherwise

192 STUDIES AND STORIES.

have lived and died like soulless animals ; but the
misdirection, the fearful misuse and abuse of the
powers at that time set free will never — while the
world lasts, it sometimes seems to me — be, in their
sad consequences, past and over."

Miss Poynsett listened attentively and respect-
fully, but scarcely as if she fully understood.

" I am no philosopher like you, dear madame,"
she said. " To me I own the story of the great
Revolution is just like a very fearful though most
fascinating tragedy ; it is the personal histories
mixed up in it that always come into my mind.
And oh, by-the-by, I am so much obliged to you
for lending me Monsieur de Beauchesne's book ;
it has interested me exceedingly. Indeed, for a
time, some parts of it almost haunted me."

"You mean, of course, his 'Louis XVII.' I
forgot I had lent it you. Yes, it is a very impres-
sive book, and a very exhaustive account of what
is always full of fresh interest — the history of the
Royal Family in the Temple. Of course the
dauphin is the central figure. Monsieur de
Beauchesne has really got together everything

THE ABB AYE DE CERISY. 1 93

lluit is known about the poor little prince. One
or two of the anecdotes are intensely touching."

"Almost too much so. I can't imagine ever
being able to read them without tears," the Eng-
lish lady replied. " Monsieur de Beauchesne seems
quite to set beyond a doubt the child's death in
his prison," she went on, after a little pause. " It
is almost disappointing, there is such a fascination
about the subject. And one would fain have
ho[)ed that perhaps, after all, though his prince-
ship was over for ever, the poor boy had some
peaceful years, even in a comparatively humble
position."

The Marquise remained silent for a moment or
two. When she spoke, her voice was very grave
and almost solemn.

" I don't think it is to be hoped ur wished that
it was so," she said. " For my part, I would rather
believe he died at the time generally supposed.
Nothing in the annals of child saints or martyrs
could be more beautiful, more hoi)-, than those
last days of his life in the Temple. One can
scarcely think \t possible that a soul so near heaven

O

194 STUDIES AND STORIES.

had longer to stay on earth. And yet No,

Clemency, I hope he died that 8th of June. His life,
had he lived, didho. live, must have been too sad."

Something in her words and tone struck her
companion. She looked up eagerly.

"There is a shade of uncertainty in your way
of speaking, dear madame," she said. " You don't
mean to say that you have any other theory on
the subject, besides all the stories Monsieur de
Beauchesne refutes so carefully ? "

" No," said the old lady. " I have no theoiy,
but — I had a strange adventure once, Clemency,
and though I have told it to very few— no one
now living remembers it — I have never lost the
impression it left on my mind."

She stopped. Miss Poynsett opened her lips to
speak, but hesitated. Her eager look and question-
ing eyes, however, told their own story. Madame
de Romars understood her.

"I will tell it to you if you like," she said.
" There is no reason why I should not ; it can do
no one any harm. And I fear you will be dis-
appointed ; there is so little to tell."

THE ABB AYE DE CERISY. 1 95

" No, no ; whatever it is, it will interest mc,"
said Clemency. " And thank you so much. I
hope there is nothing painful to yourself in it ? "

" Not exactly. Oh no ; it only brings back past
days, and sadder than that, past hopes and bright
anticipations never to be realized. For I was
very young then — not twenty-one — and I think
nearly all the friends just at that time asso-
ciated with me are dead — yes, all. But I will tell
you my story. It was, as nearly as I can remem-
ber, in the year 1844. We, my husband and I,
were staying with a party of friends, mostly young
— I myself was little more than a bride — at a
charming old chateau in the further extremity of
Normandy. The chateau was old, but recently
restored, so that, especially as the restoration
had been carried out with the greatest care and
good taste ; it really combined the attractions of
antiquity with those of modern life. It had been
for centuries the home of our hosts' ancestors ; the
present festivities were a sort of " house-warming,"
after the restorations, as well as to do honour to
the faii^ail/cs of the lovely young and only

1()6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

daugliLcr of the family, a girl of eighteen, who
was to be married a few weeks later in the season.
All of these details are irrelevant to my little
story, but they have remained in my memory as
a sort of frame to it, or, one might say, a bright
background to the strange sad impression my
adventure left.

" Our days passed delightfully. The country
was picturesque and beautiful. There were points
of interest of various kinds, old Roman remains,
famous " views," charming woods ; every day some
new excursion to one or other of these was
planned, and, thanks to the quite exceptionally
fine weather, these were successfully carried out.
Yes, it was a very happy time." Madame dc
Romars stopped for a moment and sighed.
Clemency w^aited in quiet sympathy. She did
not know the whole details of her old friend's
history, but she knew that trials and disappoint-
ments of no common severity had fallen to her
share, and she felt half repentant that she had
asked for the story. After a moment, the Marquise
went on—

THE ABB AYE DE Cl'.RISY. 1 97

"One day, an expedition was arranged to visit
the ancient Abba)'e de Cerisy. I was delighted
to make one of the party, especially as we were to
stop at the Chateau dc Sclcourt on the way, which
we did. Thi.s is one of the few remaining really
Feudal Chateaux, interesting on that ground alone,
though it is also worth visiting for its quantity
of old tapcstr)', furniture, and some queer pictures.
One I remember well, was a picture of the Blessed
Virgin, surrounded b}- her cousins, knights in full
' Mo)-en Age ' armour, and ladies in the garb of
nuns. At Selcourt, too, there are seven fish-ponds,
considered a unique curiosity. Then we drove
on to Cerisy. We had spent more time than wc
intended at Selcourt, so that when wc got to the
Abbaye, it was already rather late afternoon. We
hastened to visit the church, the old cloisters, etc.,
and the architectural connoisseurs among us were
loud in their praise of the grandly simple Norman
style. There was one fish-pond at Cerisy too ; a
very large one, and there was a legend — I forget
what — connected with it which interested some
of our party. I got tired of the discussion about

198 STUDIES AND STORIES.

it, and wandered off by myself, choosing acci-
dently a path which led, I found, to some old,
half-ruinous buildings. This sort of thing has
always had a great attraction for me, and I had
a curiosity to find the building which, in former
days, must have been the Abbot's house. I was
really delighted when suddenly, at the angle of
a wall which I had been skirting, I came upon
a very massive and most curiously carved door,
in an almost perfect state of preservation. I felt
like the prince in the * Sleeping Beauty ' story,
only my door was not overgrown with nettles and
brambles. On the contrary, it was slightly ajar,
and had evidently been opened not long before,
for a very slight touch made it turn on its hinges
enough for me to see before me a large wide
stone staircase, with handsome and curiously
carved rampe also in stone. This was too
enticing to resist. Up I mounted, pleasantly
excited by a slight sense of impropriety in my
proceedings, and had almost reached the small
landing at the top of the staircase when I was
confronted by a young peasant girl, who, startled

THE ABB AYE DE CERISY. 1 99

and alarmed by my appearance, stood there as
if to remonstrate against my going further. 13ut,
the blood of my curiosity and love of adventure
was 'up' by this time; I moved on, taking no
notice whatever of her evident terror and half-
whispered, stammering remonstrances. My whole
attention was absorbed by the strangeness of the
interior which I began to catch sight of. The
door of a room on my right was wide open,
revealing a sort of thick hedge or wall of close-
growing cactus and other unfamiliar, weird-looking
exotic shrubs. They were of an unusual height,
and though I have visited many botanical gardens
in my time, and had even possessed, in my own
conservatories, many curious foreign plants, I have
never seen any to equal these, nor could I have
given a name to any one of them. They must
have been there, growing where they stood, for
many and many a year ; for their branches, in
several cases, reached up to the old black beams
of the apartment, and the lower part of this
strange hedge, so to call it, quite concealed from
view, where I first stood, the room behind. Ikit

200 STUDIES AND STORIES.

a step or two forward and a slight turn to the
right showed me more. I perceived that the
hedge stopped, leaving an entrance way as it
were, and standing just in it, most of the interior
was revealed to me. I saw before me a fair-
sized room, at once strongly impressing me by
its ancient and old-world aspect. In one corner,
that on my right, stood a large square black oak
bedstead of the style known as 'Henri IV.,'
the faded, though well-preserved hangings and
coverlet were of the same period, for to an eye
trained and accustomed to judge of such things
almost from childhood, thus much can be per-
ceived at a glance. The dark wooden chairs,
their seats covered with tapestry, were of the
same period ; and had evidently, so bravely to
stand the wear and tear of centuries, been of the
very best materials. A fairly good fire was burn-
ing in the open stone hearth, and some prepara-
tion for a meal seemed to be simmering upon it,
but my gaze was drawn upwards by the really
splendid carving of the old mantelpiece and
jambs, and I was on the point of moving forward

THE APBAYE DE CERISY. 201

to examine It more closely, when my presumption
was suddenly arrested. From the further side of
the room came a deep sepulchral voice.

•"Madame/ it said — I can hear it now — 'que
demande;^-vous ? ' and turnincj towards the left,
where the afternoon lici^ht happened to fall, I saw,
half concealed by a large olive-grcen-colourcd
curtain of heavy cloth, the strangest being my
eyes have ever rested upon. I did not see the
whole of the figure ; it remained half shrouded
by the curtain, and by the screen of plants I
have tried to describe, but the face was vcr}'
plainly visible. Whether it was that of a man
or a woman I have never been able to decide ;
the unuttered exclamation that rose to m.y lips
was a strange one.

" ' That is the face of a Bourbon ! '

" I-'or familiar to me from my earliest years ha\'C
been the strongly marked, to me, unmistakable
features of that unfortunate race.

" The snow-white hair of the mysterious being
was drawn back from the forehead and concealed
by some kind of skull cap or cowl, again

202 STUDIES AND STORIES.

covered in its turn by something black and float-
ing like a veil ; a black cape or mantle shrouded
as much of the rest of the body as was visible.
The figure neither rose nor moved, but re-
mained seated in front of a small table covered
with book, papers, writing materials, etc., and
as I stood, half-stunned, ' interdite ' as we
say, again came the deep voice, accompanied
this time by a glance of the haughtiest and
sternest —

" ' Que voulez-vous, Madame ? On n'entre pas
ici.'

" My position was not a dignified one, only my
curiosity had supported me so far ! But, not-
withstanding its increasing intensity, I dared not
persist. With one glance round the extraordinary
scene, a glance that has printed it for ever on
my memory, and hastily murmured words of
respectful apology, I retreated, to find myself
once more on the landing outside, where the
peasant girl, by this time almost imbecile with
terror, shiveringly awaited me. I don't know if
she half pushed or pulled me down the stairs—

THE ABB AYE DE Cl-RISY. 203

but once outside, I turned and asked her the
reason of her extraordinary behaviour. After all,
I had done no harm ; I was only interested in
the old buildings ; what was she afraid of, and
who was the person she served ?

" I could obtain no satisfactory reply. She had
not been long there, she said ; she belonged to a
distant part of the country — as, indeed, her costume
showed — and could tell me nothing of the Abbaye
nor its inmates. Then she re-entered the building,
and closed the door in my face — not rudely, but
as if completely indifferent to any but the one idea
of getting me off the premises. Poor girl, I dare
say a reprimand of the sharpest was in store for
her!

" I retraced ni)' steps in the direction where I had
left my friends. A few paces further on, I almost
ran against an aged priest, evidently bound for the
place I had just left. An expression of surprise
and annoyance crossed his face on seeing me, or
rather the direction whence I came. He did not
speak, but stopped short, and stood there motion-
less, openly watching me till I passed through a

204 STUDIES AND STORIES.

great archway in a wall a little further on, and was
lost to his sight.

" Close at hand were my friends, somewhat
impatiently awaiting my return by the famous
fish-pond. Its legend — a gruesome one enough,
of its having been used as a burial-place for their
prisoners by some bloodthirsty monks of old, to
the benefit of the fat carp and pike— had been
discussed and quarrelled over sufficiently, and the
whole party was now anxious to get home to the
cheery chateau. During the drive thither, I told
my story, which Avas received with great interest.
Various plans were formed for revisiting Cerisy,
and trying to solve the mystery, but somehow
they were never carried out. Nor did the inquiries
set on foot in the neighbourhood about the strange
inhabitant of the ruined Abbaye, ever bring any-
thing to light concerning him. Our party shortly
after broke up. I never revisited my friends at
their chateau. Something prevented my going
to them the following year, and after that, I had
no longer any reason for doing so. Troubles, as
unexpected as undeserved, fell thickly on our

THE ABB AYE DE CERISY. 205

kind lioits, the once happy family there — and but
a few years after the merry gathering I have
described, the poor mother, of all the group, was
left to mourn alone the blighted hopes and
vanished brightness. For such sorrows as hers
there is no consolation in tJiis world to be found,
so you can understand that the associations of my
one visit to that part of the country came to be
sad enough. And notwithstanding my curiosity
about the being I have described, I never could
make up my mind to revisit the neighbourhood
of Cerisy."

Madame de Romars stopped. Clemency
I'oynsett looked up inquiringl}'.

" How sad ! " she said feelingly. " Yes, dear
madame, I well understand. But, tell me, please —
do you rcall\- think \i possible — had you the feeling
that the figure }ou saw was — was perhaps really
Louis XVII. — the poor little prince, grown

into Sta}', ivoiild he have been as old as the

recluse of the Abbaye at the time )-ou named ;
about the year i S44, was it not 1 "

"He was born in 1785," said the Marquise.

206 STUDIES AND STORIES.

" He would have been, therefore, fifty-nine at the
date of my adventure. Certainly, the person I
saw looked much older than that, to judge in an
ordinary way. But then — consider what the Prince
went through ! Had he lived, it is scarcely to be
expected he would ever have recovered his health
bodily or mental ; at least, he could never have
been like other people. No ; //"Louis XVII. lived,
I can scarcely help picturing him to myself at
sixty as at best much such a prematurely aged,
fearfully marked human being as the strange
vision I came across. I hope it was not he — I
cannot endure to think it was — to picture the long
monotonous years that must have passed in that
sad captivity of concealment, and, in all proba-
bility, in great physical suffering too. For I tJiiiik
the poor creature I saw must have been paralyzed
or something of that kind. Yet there was such
dignity, such reserve and presence about the strange
being — no angry chatter of scolding ; just the few
cold, haughty, yet not uncourteous words I have
repeated."

''Whoever it was — man or woman— -must have

THE ABB AYE DE CERISY. 20/

been quite of the upper classes," said Miss
Poynsett.

" Oh dear, yes — a thousand times yes. The
tone, the accent, the manner — all showed it. Poor
old man, for I think it was a man, Louis XVII. or
not — there was a sad story shut up in that strange
room — a story almost certainly connected with
that awful time a century ago. How often since,
I have wished I could have shown some kindness
to the recluse, infused some little brightness into
that almost unearthly life ! But it could not have
been. And whoever it was, it is all over now "

" I, too, hope it was not the Prince," said
Clemency, " strangely fascinating though the idea
is. But there were the Bourbon features."

" Yes," agreed her old friend. " There were
those undoubtedly : the unmistakable Bourbon
features."

Jo8 STUDIES AND STORIES.

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD.

" A TYPICAL English girl ! " What vision do the
words evoke ! We all know it, I think —

" There a girl conies, with brown locks curl'd,
Crying, ' Oh, what a beautiful world *
Crying, ' Oh, what a happy place ! ' "

as some nameless songster has it. Brown locks,
blue eyes, wild-rose tinted cheeks, a very incarna-
tion above all of eager, youthful happiness, veiled
perhaps by a faint haze of shyness and appeal
which but enhances the sunshine behind. A
charming picture, and, in point of fact, so far as
the physical loveliness goes, a far from imaginary
one ; the jaundiced-eyed critic, or cynic rather,
has yet to appear who can deny the sweet and
honest beauty of English girlhood in the mass.
But what about the full content, the childlike, if
not childish, unquestioning satisfaction with her

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 209

world as she found it, which for long were looked
upon as the matter-of-course characteristics of girl-
hood— as what should be such at least, in a normal
condition of things ?

Is it so ? And is it to be desired that it should
be so ? Taking " girlhood " as represented by
even the narrow measure of seventeen to two or
three and twenty, should it be a season of grown-
up play, of no true sense of responsibility to the
present or the future ? And in such instances as
the carelessness or indulgence of parents and
guardians make it such, does it " answer " ? Is
the girl in any real way the happier for her
residence in this fool's paradise ? Would she, in
nineteen cases out of twenty, deliberately repeat
the programme with daughters of her own ?

For our girls have as a rule good stuff in them :
mother-wit, common sense, and conscientiousness,
quickening, nowadays, into thoughtful and wide-
minded revicwal of their position ; into earnest
inquiry as to where and how their talents can be
put out to the best account. That such inquiry
is idle cannot be maintained ; it is increasingly

p

2 10 STUDIES AND STORIES.

forced upon them by certain, to some extent,
abnormal conditions closely affecting themselves.
And though these may be, and probably are, but
a temporary phase in our social history, the present
is practically our immediate concern — its difficulties
must be faced. And even those among us whose
sympathy and such experience as years must bring
to all but the entirely thoughtless are the best, they
have to offer, may perhaps be forgiven for coming
forward with their mite.

It is always difficult to form a correct contem-
poraneous judgment of any society or section of
society in a state of transition, and English girl-
hood is at the present time markedly in this state,
especially as regards its upper strata. To a certain
extent too this is the case in the lower classes,
using the term in its widest sense, though with
them the literal struggle for existence, the necessity
of labour if one would live, naturally induce far
greater similarity and monotony of real condition
from one generation to another, however outward
surroundings may vary, than where there is free-
dom to be idle or not as one chooses. Naturally,

EXGLISIf GIRLHOOD. 2 I I

too, the necessity, or at least desirability, of recog-
nized occupation influences young men of the
upper classes far more extensively than their
sisters.

" What is your son going to be ? " is a matter-
of-course question in all grades of society as the
boy approaches the confines of manhood. For
his own moral and intellectual, not to speak of
spiritual welfare, it is universally accepted that to
be worthy of the name a man must work — must
do sonicthiug. Not so for the other sex ; not so
at least till within a very recent date. There has
been but one orthodox and recognized " career "
in England for women belonging to the higher
grades of society, and she who failed to achieve
an entrance into this was accounted a failure
indeed. Many years ago now it happened to me
to overhear a conversation between four small
people — three brothers and a sister, all under
eight years of age — as to their future, l^ach boy
announced his choice — "soldier," "sailor," what
not. "And you, Ella!'" to the hitherto silent
little maiden.

213 STUDIES AND STORIES.

"I," came the answer, with completest satis-
faction, " oh, /, of course, will be a mamma!'

She spoke what she had already learnt, what
in truth every girl among us was tacitly if
not avowedly trained for from the earliest days
of dolls and doll-houses to the latest stage of
" coming out " and ball-room successes ; nay, even
in the schoolroom itself, when it was no uncommon
check on the studies of some exceptionally in-
telligent girl that she "must not be allowed to
carry them too far, for men do not care about
learned wives."

Nor ought we to be unfair to the instinct at the
root of this formerly exaggerated code. On the
contrary, as is the danger in all human reforms
and innovations, which, it would truly seem,*
" must, to float, be ballasted with a certain weight
of error," there is at the present time a very dis-
tinct tendency to rush into the opposite extreme-
The best and noblest, because the normal position
for a woman — if we except some rare and saintly
souls of whom in a review of the average English-

* W. R. Greig,

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 213

woman \vc have scarcely to take account — is that
of true wife and mother. To inculcate otherwise
would indeed be a setting up of the vessel against
the potter. Nor could a theory entailing dis-
location and severance of the members consti-
tuting our human nature, a doctrine assailing
the Divine thought of the family as the centre
of all society, ever really take root or permanently
flourish.

But in almost all modern societies, so far as we
have experience of them,' there must be a propor-
tion, larger or smaller, of women who do not or
cannot marry. And here in England, in these last
days of the nineteenth century, this proportion is
abnormally large. Into the many causes of this,
some patent to the most superficial observer, some
deep-lying and far back in their origin, some, alas !
intermingled with the yet graver and darker evils
shadowing the march of high material civilization
— into these we cannot here attempt to enter. The
fact itself, so far as it affects the present phase of
our girlhood's history, is what concerns us. And
the recognition of it has alrcad)- helped to bene-

214 STUDIES AND STORIES.

ficcnt results — the silver lining of the cloud has
shone out in more than one corner.

Here, by way of parenthesis, may a word or
two be said as to the wisdom or feasibility of ever
admitting- among us some modification of the
French system on this much-vexed question of
marriage, a system as to which we have done our
neighbours but scant justice ; nor is the reason
of this far to seek. A modern French marriage,
arranged and negotiated by the parents, is an honest,
straightforward, matter-of-fact piece of business, of
which no one concerned has any reason to feel
ashamed. For where the movers in it are right-
minded and conscientious, their part is viewed as
preliminary only, and subject to the approval of
the two real principals. Never in such cases — and
they are the majority — is marriage forced upon
either, against his or her inclination and instincts.
There are exceptions to this, of course, where
selfish, worldly, or worse people have to do with
the matter — where and when, in what country
and what times will bad workmen do good work t
— but exceptions they are. And the proof of the

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 2 1 5

pudding is in the eating. That the French system
is neither vicious nor unnatural is shown by the
boiis nienages which are the rule, and whose exist-
ence refutes our mistaken ideas on the subject —
ideas taken surely from the older days when our
own social institutions would have borne as little
as our neighbours the clearer light of modern
l)rinciples. Arranged marriages in England are a
very different thing ; they exist but in. the \vorst
form, and their very promoters are often the
loudest in their invectives against the French
system, crediting it with the entirely worldly in-
centives actuating themselves. Even in the rare
cases where the F^rcnch plan is from good and pure
motives resorted to, no one will own to it, and a
blameless action thus comes to have an ugly look
about it.

The days are yet to come when the Frcncli
system will be to any extent adopted in England :
it is contrary to our associations, to the "romance"'
which has not yet quite deserted us, and which our
less imaginative neighbours understand so little ;
contrary even to the spirit of our religion ; contrary

2l6 STUDIES AND STORIES,

to the increasing independence and self-dependence
of Englishwomen. But — as one is driven to own
so constantly in the discussion of most sublunary
affairs — there are exceptions. There are girls
who, incapable of understanding marriage in the
highest sense, of appreciating the true and mystic
beauty of noble love and noble union ; still more,
incapable of feeling that not to marry at all is
nearer the spirit of the Divine ideal for man and
woman than to marry without " poetry," are yet,
as it has been cynically said, " fit for nothing else."
For many such, selfishness diminished if not
extinguished by new claims, the germs of heart
and soul developed by the inevitable trials and
responsibilities of married life, turn out worthy
wives and mothers, useful members of society,
who would otherwise have been but cumberers
of the ground. And very aggressive cumberers,
if the expression may be allowed — discontented,
idle, tiresome old maids ! For any sake let
marriages, when reasonably and practically
possible, be " arranged " for such, if the common-
place and easily contented man can be found

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 21/

who would be satisfied with his share of the
bargain.

It is not to girls of this class, however, that our
best sympathy and consideration are due. There
are many of the sweetest and finest natures who,
as school-days with their regular discipline, their
often interesting and absorbing studies, recede
further into the background, and full womanhood
confronts them, ask earnestly and pathetically,
"What am I to do with my life and myself?"
There arc others, less thoughtful, who are never-
theless conscious of increasing discontent and dis-
satisfaction as they realize that actual youth Is
slipping past. Yet they were bright and hopeful
and energetic creatures at eighteen ! Is it then to
these few critical years of girlhood itself that we
must look for the root of the wrong }

Education for girls, in the conventional sense of
the school-days' work, is very different from what
it was, thanks to the devoted efforts of some yet
among us — women whom all must recognize as
benefactors not only to their sex, but to their
country. It is at once more thorough and more

2l8 STUDIES AND STORIES.

attractive, and individual tastes and capacities are
now so taken into account that most girls love
their studies and are eager to pursue them for
their own sake. But we have been emerging from
a melancholy and unsatisfactory state of things.
Never was girls' education at a lower ebb than in
the first quarter of this century. The mothers
and grandmothers of the children of those days
had been better, because more thoroughly taught
what they did learn ; the fatal rage for accomplish-
ments at all costs had not then set in, the modern
and cheaper pianofortes being — fortunately for
our great-grandfathers — a comparatively recent
innovation, and water-colour materials expensive ;
sewing-machines had not destroyed the need for
neat and careful seamstresses even among the
upper classes ; and fancy-work was still, what it
is delightful to sec it again, an art — and a beautiful
one. Books were few, and read many times over ;
governesses, inefficient or otherwise, rare ; so that
girls not infrequently shared their brothers' lessons,
and classics were not altogether excluded from the
maiden curriculum. And excellent housewifery

ENCLISII GIRLHOOD. 2\^j

ill all its branches was a sine qua non ; though
to sec this phase of feminine training in its per-
fection, with its fragrance of distilled waters and
sorted herbs, its pasties and quaint "conserves,"
its shelves full of spotless napery with exquisite
marking, we must perhaps go still further back —
to the da\-s when it was a matter of course for the
ladies of the manor-house and the parsonage to
have a fair knowledge of domestic pharmacy, like
the " daughter dear" in the old ballad wlio was
" a leech of skill " ; before it was the fashion to
" swoon " for nothing or faint at the sight of blood ;
when girls rode pillion many a mile behind the old
man-servant if a neighbour were to be visited ;
when novels were nouvdlcs, and foreign travel all
but unknown !

Queer, dear old days ! Were i)eoplc happier
and more at peace then ? Was it easier to keep
real things — holy things — before one's mind than
now, in the rush of this hot and burdened age ?
It would seem so almost, but distance in time,
as in space, " lends enchantment." People had
their troubles and perplexities then as now doubt-

220 STUDIES AND STORIES.

less, even in the remotest and most sylvan of Eng-
lish hamlets. And perchance the day will come
when our descendants in their turn will look back
on us with mingled envy and contempt, and
wonder how we lived our nineteenth century lives !
We are keeping waiting unduly, however, our
girls of to-day, concerned about the present and
the future, for whom the marvellous fascination of
the past has yet to awaken. It is this special
period of girlhood, these few intermediate years
we wish to consider. Why do they so often seem
to fail in preparing our girls for maturer life, above
all, those among them who do not marry ? And
that there must be a considerable proportion of
this class we know. Some, their choice being-
small and not attractive to their own refinement
and depth of character — for it is not, as a rule, the
noblest of our men who can marry young nowadays
— deliberately reject what offers ; some, often the
most generous and unselfish, bestow their affec-
tions unwisely ; some, it is whispered in even the
selectest circles, never have a chance at all ! And
in almost all these cases, the close of girlhood

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 221

brings disappointment and perplexity, if not feel-
ings more nearly allied to despair !

The reason seems to me not far to seek. There
has been a wrong spirit pervading this phase of
life altogether. Amusement, instead of the relax-
ation it should be, the healthful variety and change
from a background of useful occupation, has been
made the great object of thought, and word, and
deed ; the girl has got out of the habit of work, and
alas ! by a strange and melancholy paradox, with
the enjoyment of unduly indulgcd-in pleasure does
not fade the craving for it ; rather indeed would
it seem to increase. Though the apples have
become but as those of the Dead Sea, yet must
they at all costs be had, if cniuii (in our English
sense of the word), with her ugly following, is not
to become undisputed mistress of the field. And
we have the wearisome spectacle of a young
woman no longer in her first brilliance, pursuing
amusement and frivolity because she has " nothing
else to do," or thinks so, because in truth she has
learnt to live no other life ; or the still more
painful sight of " flirtation," begun in the first

222 STUDIES AND STORIES.

exuberance of youth innocently enough perhaps,
degraded into "husband-hunting," in the desperate
desire to get out of a vapid and objectless exist-
ence. There is less of all this, thank God, than
there was some years ago ; still there is too much.
And even where amusement is not made so un-
duly prominent, there is much negative misdoing.
No distinct duties or responsibilities have been
given to or even suggested to the girl.

" Send your boy to the university by all means
if you can manage it, but whatever you do, have
some work ready for him when he leaves it. It
is that idling-about time, what people call giving
them some fun and play before they buckle to,
that unsettles young fellows," was a piece of sound
advice I once heard. Does it not suggest an
application in a modified form, to our girls ?
Even with regard to ordinary home-duties, how
few mothers definitely and distinctly give their
daughters a share. " Evelyn will learn for herself
when she has a house of her own. It is so much
easier to do things one's self than to teach others!"
is the usual excuse. Yes, truly, so it is, vnic/i

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 233

easier. Ikit wliat then ? What about the husband,
'* the not impossible //r," who is to depend on " the
learnint^ for herself," the children, the servants, if
Evelyn docs marry ? What about the days that
may come, all too soon, even if she do not, when
the girl may be called upon to replace her mother,
temporarily or permanently, maybe ? What about
herself? Even if she learn this one thing w^ell,
has not Evelyn a chance of being a happier woman
for it ? A happier and a stronger woman ? For
sorrows and troubles come to all, and in one
direction a girl is peculiarly exposed to suffering ;
there are few whose hearts escape unbruised during
those fateful years of girlhood. It may be through
nobody's fault, it may be through the thoughtless-
ness, or even deliberate cold-bloodedness of some
one the poor child imagines a hero, who finds her
inexperience too amusing to resist, that her fairy
castle crumbles about her ears some fine mornina
and she is left desolate. And very real and
desperate is her suffering for the time ; but foi
such suffering, for all sorrow indeed, is there any
human cure like work ? Work looked for and

224 STUDIES AND STORIES.

expected ? that iiiNst be done ? work, best of all,
for others ? Truly, when one's own life looks but
a most complete and bitter shipwreck, there is
nothing so great a boon as to feel that all the
same one must be up and doing ; that there are
still those who would miss it if one were not.

Doubtless these few years are a time of waiting,
of uncertainty. Every girl knows she 7!iay marry,
and any definite work seems scarcely " worth
while." But it is all the more " worth while," that
it is just during these times of waiting that the
habits of regularity and method are most easily
lost. And even if we take for granted that these
have been to some extent well acquired during
schoolroom life, the keeping them up is no easy
matter, for it is of the very nature of things that
a girl's occupations should be various and vary-
ing ; the arrangement of her time too cannot but
be to some extent subservient to the plans of her
elders, to which her own wishes must often and
rightly yield. But when there is sympathy be-
tween parents and children, and when even there
is not much of this, a girl's real desire to use her

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 22 5

time well, to be of some good, will win its way : and
when the danger of making amusement the great
object is clearly recognized, few sensible girls need
be long at a loss. I have small belief in finding
" nothing to do," though all general advice must
be vague. The precise kind of study or self-im-
provement to which a girl should give a definite
part of her time must of course be greatly directed
by individual tastes and capacities, and on very
widely differing circumstances depend the nature
and amount of assistance she should give in her
own home and to those immediately about her :
even amusements themselves should be regulated
—and would assuredly be enhanced — by unsel-
fishness and consideration for others. But besides
all this, there are few girls who will not do well
from the first of their freer life to undertake sonic
distinct work among the poor, even if it be but a
Sunday school class once a week.* After-life

* " Even .1 Sunday school class." I feci half inclined to with-
draw the first word. For to manage such a class as it should be
and can be done, calls for a fair amount of work, both as to self-
preparation and real study, to fit one for the actual teaching, and in
tlic week day "looking after" the children; the calling now and

226 STUDIES AND STORIES.

will assuredly give a girl no cause to regret this,
and the self-denial, punctuality and patience she
should practise are excellent training, even if it
should never fall to her lot to do much in this
direction. The sympathy and wider knowledge
of the " other half of the world," to which such
simple effort may be the opening, are invaluable
to all women, and cannot but prepare a girl for
larger fields of action, to which she may perhaps
be called ; to which indeed, above all if she do not
marry, she certainly, as she grows older, should
devote some increased part of her time.

And I am much mistaken if new departures for

ilicn at their homes, the assistance in case of ilhiess, the little treats
one may sometimes give, etc., etc. And while touching on this I
may be perhaps allowed to say to those girls whose time hangs
heavy on their hands, who can find ' ' nothing to do of any real use
to any one," that the need for Sunday school teachers, in London
especially, is crying. I could name twenty parishes whose clergy
would endorse this. The same too can be said for week-day work,
Bands of Hope, etc., as to the good of which even the most pre-
judiced are unanimous. "It is the children we must get hold of,"
say all the wisest thinkers on temperance and kindred subjects.
Personally I can testify to the extreme difficulty of getting any
young girls to do any useful, modest, unsensational work within
their capacity regularly and perseveringly. Is not the true way of
tsating their complaint rather, " We can find nothing that we like
to do"?

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 22/

useful work amoni^ our poorer contemporaries are
not opeiiiiiL; up in various directions, even for the
many, not specially gifted as are the select — or
elect — few ; the uncanonized saints among us,
whose absolute devotion and unselfishness, strength
of nerve and faithfulness of spirit, rare and cau-
tiously to be verified qualifications, render them a
class apart indeed. A3 to these increasing and
widening systems it would be premature to say
much, but in going on to a passing mention of
the less w'ell-to-do classes of English girlhood,
some suggestions may perhaps come forward of
themselves.

Hitherto we have been considering almost
entirely girls of our upper classes, using the words
in their very widest sense as including all these
who arc not forced to work, though, as rough
classifications must al\va)'S be imperfect, among
these are to be found some of less original refine-
ment, less good birth, than man)- girls who are
enrolled in the great army of bread-winners. The
problems to be solved concerning working women
of every class are of a different kind ; they arc

228 STUDIES AND STORIES.

many, but the wisest heads in the country are
engaged upon them, and already the prospect is
brightening. Steadily increasing spheres of labour,
and steadily increasing opportunities of qualifying
themselves for such, are to be found. Technical
colleges for women, in which hitherto this country
has been peculiarly deficient, are being demanded
in various directions, and will doubtless be gra-
dually supplied. On the whole, this side of the
picture is cheering — more cheering, to my mind,
than that of the " unemployed " in the ranks of
well-to-do girlhood and " spinsterhood," to use a
quaint and really charming word. Can we do
nothing to amalgamate the two a little ? Are
there not ways in which our richer girls may begin
even during girlhood to help their, practically
speaking, less fortunate sisters ? An evening or
two a week given up to simple entertaining of
some of them ; carefully chosen lending libraries ;
a day in the country now and then — surely the
opportunities of this kind are legion ! Nay, more ;
could not some of our rich girls teach the pooref,
at odd hours maybe, and not without some trouble

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD, 229

very certainly. For to teach, one must learn, and
the lessons which would often most truly benefit
her humbler sisters are not always those acquired
at school or in the schoolroom at home, though
as to this there is no absolute rule. But a course
of thorough lessons in sick-nursing, in cooking, in
good dressmaking, or other departments of needle-
work, in even more " technical " studies, such as
shorthand and book-keeping, need not occupy
more than a few hours a week of the leisure of our,
at best, but half-employed girl, and would qualify
her for in the future imparting her knowledge to
others with but very few hours and still fewer
shillings at their command, to whom nevertheless
such special training might be of enormous im-
portance and value. And the special training
would assuredly do the j'oung teacher herself no
harm, even though she might never be required
to turn it to personal account. Though who knows
what the future may bring to any one of us ? For
very certainly among the many pupils who, eager
to find some remunerative employment, will flock
for instruction to these technical colleges, there

230 STUDIES AND STORIES.

will be not a few who even in the very superficial
and conventional sense of not having to work for
their living, as well as in the truer meaning of the
word, are thoroughly entitled to call themselves
"ladies." And should circumstances of any kind
afterwards decide a girl to take up any special
department of women's work, nursing, for instance,*
as a profession, this amount of preliminary appren-
ticeship, small as it may be, will save her in the
future, loss of time and possible uncertainty as to
her individual capacity.

To sum up a little, though of necessity but
roughly and in few words, the various problems

* With regard to this special occupation, or profession, I may
perhaps be allowed to give one word of warning against allowing
any young woman to enter upon it prematurely. Incalculable
mischief may be done by its being attempted too young, even if
only in the modified form of hospital nursing for a certain period
without any intention of devoting one's life to it. The slighter
teaching now to be had at technical colleges in this department will,
it is to be hoped, fill a gap, and do good negatively as well as
positively. Most hosjiitals refuse to take probationers under the
age of five and twenty, but this rule is not, I am sorry to find,
universal. And even five and twenty is fully young for the average
girl to test her fitness for work so arduous and so peculiarly trying,
and assuredly if attempted before that age the risk of lasting injury
to health and nerves is exceedingly grave.

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 23 I

offered at the present time by English girlhood of
all classes, may not a separation, in the first place,
into the under-ivorkcd and the over-worked \\<:^\i to
clear our views? And hard and painful as life
with its sharp necessity for early labour may bo
for the latter, is it not a question if the evil wrought
by the conditions, on the surface and materially
speaking so much more advantageous, of our upper-
class girls, is not in the long run as great? For
their sake, as well as from the more universally
recognized motives of philanthropy and benevo-
lence in the ordinary sense, is it not our plain dut)'
to try to equalize things a little? Cannot much
more be done towards refining and brightening
the lives of our working girls, hand-in-hand with
increased training for useful, unselfish, and re-
sponsible occupation for our own daughters?

And to look still wider afield, and further ahead,
never has there been a time with more good work
in England calling to be done ; never has there
been a period in our social history when so large a
proportion of our better-class women must pass
through life without entering into its closest

232 STUDIES AND STORIES.

personal tics and responsibilities : do not these
two great facts speak for themselves ?

Are parents, mothers especially, doing their best
for their girls ? During these few critical years of
girlhood, when the eager and readily receptive
spirit begins to look out upon life for itself, to
Vv'hat strange, sad influences, is it not often ex-
posed ? By example, if not by the coarseness of
positive precept, how many a young creature is
indoctrinated with " worldliness " in some of its
most insidious forms : selfish stiniggling to be first
in the race for social advantage ; contemptible
condescension to meannesses of motive and deed
which few would like to see expressed in plain
words ; love of outside excitement at all costs,
leading to neglect of first duties, even sometimes
under the specious guise of benevolent devotion
on so-called "religious" grounds — a tone of mind
and spirit, in short, utterly at variance with the
purity and elevation of the Christian character
professedly our ideal ! What results can be ex-
pected but such as too frequently ensue ? Religion
as an active principle is tacitly disbelieved in and

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 233

thrown aside, self-seeking in one or other of its
innumerable forms, replacing all higher motive,
till not infrequently the pupil surpasses the teacher,
and the parent is aghast at the fruits of her own,
perhaps half unconscious, planting ! Even in the
more superficial matters of outward manner and
bearing, how many a girl, sweet, natural, and
modest, essentially a "gentlewoman," is trans-
formed by the inculcated slavery to society and
its laws into an artificial puppet, afraid of moving
or speaking save after a certain studied fashion,
or worse still, into a coarse and noisy hoyden ;
thereby, more often than is probably at all
suspected, disgusting and alienating the very
beings (the best of them, at any rate) whose
admiration she has been taught to exert her
utmost powers to secure.

The mischief of course is not entirely confined
to the period of life wc have been more particularly
considering ; school-days have much to answer
for. For though the actual instruction is now so
much more thorough and truly "educational," the
grave questions of companionship, both as regards

234 STUDIES AND STORIES.

fellow-learners and teachers, should never be for-
gotten. With respect to the latter, the responsi-
bility of parents is much more serious in a case
of home education, where a girl cannot but be
influenced for life by the governess with whom
so great a part of her time is spent. And that
the increase of first-rate schools for girls will effect
this state of things to any very considerable extent
as regards the daughters of our quite upper classes,
seems to me from practical and other reasons
improbable. Perhaps the perfection of things
would be most nearly realized by an approach
to the French modern system of cours, which gives
a girl the advantage of the best teaching — that
of teachers specially qualified in their own subjects
—superintended and supplemented by her own
private governess at home, at the same time as
the stimulus of emulation and intellectual friction,
without exposing her to the risk of indiscriminate
companionship, and hasty or injudicious friend-
ships out of lesson hours. These latter dangers
are of course more to be dreaded in boarding-
school life than in even the least exclusive of day-

ENGLISH GIRLHOOD. 235

schools. And that the growing preponderance of
the latter is an advantage to girls in general few
will be inclined to dispute, if the greater " natural-
ness" of daughters and sisters living in their own
homes, even during the years when the most of
their time must be given to study, be taken into
account, as contrasted with the unavoidable
absence of domestic training, the enforced
estrangement from home duties and gradually
developing responsibilities necessitated by life in
even the most excellent of institutions, primarily
if not exclusively devoted to intellectual instruc-
tion.

2\6 STUDIES AND STORIES.

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE,

Fiction, as we all know, in the sense in which we
use the term in the present day, is a new growth.
One does not need to go very far back into the
social life of the past, or to read up much in any
history to be satisfied as to this, and like all influ-
ences new and old, it has its good side and its bad
— its use, and also its grave possibilities of abuse
and misuse. I have more than once heard it said
that it would be by no means a matter for regret,
but in many ways the reverse, if, during one whole
year, no new books were to be written. I cer-
tainly think it would be a great cause for con-
gratulation if, for some such given time, no new
novels were to appear ! There would be leisure
for a thorough weeding-out of those already in
existence, which would, I think, be salutary for

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 237

authors as well as for readers — weeding-out always
is effected in time, it is true, but the ever-increas-
ing mass of publications renders it more and more
difficult. And meanwhile it is melancholy to
reflect on the enormous waste of time and energy
on books that are even less worth reading than
writing. For, after all, though I would be the
last to encourage or urge young people with no
special gift, or no special reason for imagining
they may have such a gift though dormant, to
rush into print, still the doing so is sometimes a
very wholesome lesson. No book can be written
without a good deal of patience and toil, and
except in wrong-doing, patience and toil are
never altogether thrown awa}'. And nothing
tests the reality of literary powers like seeing
one's productions in print — unless, it may be,
the humiliation of finding the result of one's
labours ruthlessly cut to pieces, or, still worse,
altogether icfnorcd. For where there is real
talent these trials often serve but as a spur to
renewed effort.

The increase of books of fiction — talcs and

238 STUDIES AND STORIES.

stories of every kind, more especially novels, not
to mention children's books — with which just now
we are scarcely concerned — is almost incredible.
Even forty or fifty years ago, when the threc-
volumed novel was already fairly launched, and
circulating libraries on a small scale had been for
some time in existence, the number of tales and
stories was infinitesimal compared with to-day.
And in another way fiction was of much less
importance as a factor in social life.

Novels, as a rule at that time, were so poor.
With the exception of the works of a very few
leading authors, the run of them was both dull
and uninteresting, exceedingly untrue to nature,
badly written, and terribly sentimental. The word
" romance " which tells its own tale, had not yet
altogether gone out of fashion. I do not think
many of these second or third-rate — no rate at all,
we should now dub them — productions would find
much favour with the girls of the present day.
There is no doubt whatever that the whole level
of fiction — the higher ground having been first
sighted by some great pioneers such as Charlotte

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 239

Bronte, Dickens, Thackeray, Harriet Martineaii ;
a little further back by Sir Walter Scott, Miss
Austen, Miss Edgcworth (whose " Helen," a novel
of almost typical excellence, is far less known
than it should be) ; a little later on by Mrs.
Gaskcll, Anthony Trollopc, Charles Kingsley,
Miss Thackeray, Charles Reade, Miss Mulock,
Miss Yonge, Mrs. Oliphant, Dr. George Mac-
donald, and by that time already many others —
the whole level has risen incalculably. Nowadays
it would take nearly all the minutes at my disposal
merely to enumerate the names of existing novels
of unquestionable merit, both English and Ameri-
can. i\nd among the authors of these, I may
remark parenthetically, not a few good judges
place women-writers, led by George Eliot, in the
foremost rank. These greater novelists are fol-
lowed by an innumerable crowd of smaller ones,
many a one of whose productions would, earlier
in this century, have been looked upon, and
rightly, as a masterpiece. And it is just because
the level has so risen, just because there are so
very many books of fiction worth reading, that the

240 STUDIES AND STORIES.

subject requires such serious consideration, that
it behoves us, out of much that is good, to choose
the best, and not only the best in the abstract, but
to find out what is best for iis — and that we are
left without excuse if ever we are guilty of reading
a book that is in any sense bad. For of course
the bad has come with the good. With the im-
provement both in matter and literary skill has
crept in a great wave of false cleverness, of writing
for effect and notoriety, instead of from any higher
motive or true love of art, of pandering to public
taste already satiated v/ith too much light and
ephemeral literature and ever seeking for new
excitement — in a word, what has been called the
"sensational school" in fiction, though in using
this Avell-worn expression, I do so only in its objec-
tionable sense. For it covers a wide field, and I
should be very sorry to be supposed to refer to
the many wholesome and harmless as well as
clever novels which yet, as is rather to be re-
gretted, mustj technically speaking, so to say, be
classed as belonging to that school.

There are a good many things I should like to

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 24 1

impress upon girls with regard to novel or story-
book reading. I can only touch upon the most
important. And first of all comes a very common-
place piece of advice, almost, indeed, a truism.
Never forget that reading fiction is to be looked
upon as a recreation. There are, it is true, some
novels — among them I might mention Mr. I'ater's
" Marius the Epicurean," perhaps Mr. Shorthouse's
" John Inglesant" — which are hardly to be ranked
as such. They arc certainly not "light" reading,
however beautiful. Such books arc the product
of immense learning and research and profound
scholarship — to be read, understood, and admired
as they deserve, they must be studied. But as
regards fiction in general, if it is to fall into its
right place as an influence for good on a girl, it
should be looked upon as among the sweetmeats
of her life. Otherwise it not only unfits one for
graver reading, and most probably interferes prac-
tically with duties not to be set aside, but it actu-
ally loses its own charm if indulged in too much,
or at unseasonable hours. First thing in the
morning and last at night seem to mc very pro-

R

242 STUDIES AND STORIES.

minent among these unsuitable times. Not only
do we owe our very first and last waking thoughts
to the best and highest interests of all, but besides
this, a habit of novel reading in the forenoon
leaves one in a curiously unready and desultory
condition for the day's work, and sitting up late
at night over an interesting or exciting tale is
equally sure to make one's brain unhealthily tired
and listless.

As to ivJiat fiction to read, I would, to start with,
strongly advise a girl on first beginning to feel
her own way a little in bookland, to read some
of the best older novels. Sir Walter Scott is
sadly out of fashion, I know. Young people find
him woefully dull. But I cannot believe that
young human nature has changed so extraordi-
narily as all that, in half a century or less. I fear
the mischief is almost entirely due to premature
and perhaps indiscriminate indulgence in novels
while still very young ; even in some cases before
childhood is really past. If girls had as few
books as their grandmothers had in tJieir youth,
fresh from school-work and with unspoilt taste,

FICTIO.V: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 243

I think most of them would be as susceptible
to the wonderful charm of the great northern
wizard as were these grandmothers in their day.
Indeed, I have seen it tested — some young people
I know were brought up on the Continent under
rather "old-fashionedly" strict surveillance. Story-
books of any kind were rare, novels unknown.
Just as they were growing up, a return to Eng-
land opened out a wide field to them, and as they
were wisely directed, the Waverley novels were
almost their first pasture-ground. I can scarcely
exaggerate, and shall never forget, the delight and
enjoyment these boys and girls found in them.
Nor has this freshness of taste ever been alto-
gether lost. I think the restricted story reading
of their earlier youth has not proved a subject
of regret.

And close upon the \\'avcrlc)-s come others,
varying so widely that no one can complain of
monotony in our older fiction, though its amount
may be limited. Dear Miss Austen for one ;
"The Newcomes," " Pendennis," the almost em-
barrassing wealth of Charles Dickens's books

244 STUDIES AND STORIES,

leading us on gradually to the later novelists of
this century who, one by one, have been canonized
by the slow but sure decision of time as " stan-
dard authors" whose works will "live." Along
with this reading, or interspersed with it, it may
be well to divert yourself now and then, in an-
ticipation as it were, with a present-day novel.
But when you begin with these, I would earnestly
advise you to ask advice and direction. Do not
be in a hurry to read a book just because " every-
body " is reading it ; do not feel ashamed not to
have seen " the book of the season." It may
sometimes prove a very blessed thing for you
never to see it at all. Far better miss altogether
the reading the cleverest book that ever was
written than soil your mind and memory in the
very least ; far better even to be laughed at as
prudish or behind the day, than risk any contact
with the mental or moral pitch which is so very
hard quite to rub off again. For though, taken
in the mass, our English fiction is not often,
thank God, open to the terrible verdict that must
be passed on that of some other nations ; there

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 245

are a great man)- novels that arc not good, where
no real belief or nobility of principle underlies
the cleverness, which leave a young mind con-
fused as to what is "good," or what the writer
means one to think so, or worse still, insinuates
a strange chaotic distress as to whether right is
right any longer, or wrong wrong ? I think,
though they may not be obtrusively so, we who
are Christians must call such books " bad." For
remember, it is not writing about bad things that
is necessarily bad. As girls grow older they have
to face evil in many forms, in real life and even
sometimes its delineation in fiction. But it should
be recognized as evil, as the powerful yet miser-
able thing we have to do battle with while life
lasts ; never as a skilfully draped and dressed-up
figure which is to be misnamed "good." Nor,
even when recognized as evil should its deformi-
ties be unnecessarily dwell upon : the doing so is
one of the worst of the morbid tendencies of
present-day fiction, and can do as no good. It
may possibly in some cases bring home his own
degradation to the hardened and stupefied con-

246 STUDIES AND STORIES.

science of a drunkard to see it portrayed in its
dreadful reality — though even this is an open
question — but supposing it were ever our painful
task to help any such unhappy ones, I do not
think we should do it any the better from having
studied some morbidly accurate picture of this
terrible vice in a novel — French or English, For,
to my sorrow, I could name some recent English
novels, written, I am assured, with the best
motives, and supposed to be suited to young
readers, which I should shrink from putting into
the hands of such, almost more than an honestly
coarse medieval romance.

But having sought and received wise and at
the same time sympathetic counsel as to your
choice of books, do not keep yourself too much
in leading-strings. Do not be afraid to form and
to hold, while always open to correction or sug-
gestions, or readjustment of your views— jw/r oioii
opinion. You have several things to consider ;
not only what is good in the abstract, but, as I
said before, what is good for jw/, what you really
enjoy, what )'ou feel you profit by. Nothing is

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE, 247

more pitiful or absurd than to hear a young
person, parrot-like, praising or trying to be enthu-
siastic about some book he or she neither admires
nor understands, just because it seems the thing
to do. One of the very cleverest and most culti-
vated women I know, is not ashamed to own
when the subject comes up, that she has never
been able to derive any kind of pleasure from the
writings of Charles Dickens. And to mc person-
ally, still more astonishing, I have met people
who found " Pride and Prejudice," and " North-
anger Abbey " very flat. I myself feel the same
want of attraction in some American novelists
whose genius is incontestable. We are not all
made alike, and even if one's own want of appre-
ciation of books that should be admired is some-
what humiliating, it is better to be humiliated
than not to be honest, though at the same time
good taste and true humility should prevent one's
obtruding these eccentricities of taste, another
little danger of which I would warn young readers.
I'or mental powers and perceptions change as
v.ell as develop. " Fontaine jc nc boirai jamais

248 STUDIES AND STORIES.

du tes eaux," is a rash declaration ; the very books
you cannot like now, may become your greatest
friends in later years. Say you do not care for
them rf your opinion is called for, but beware of
inferring that they are unworthy of being cared for.

Then you have to find out what books have the
best effect on you — some people cannot stand very
exciting or thrilling stories, just as some people
are better without any wine. If you find it so
with you, if certain novels so engross your mind
and imagination that real life becomes dream-
land, and you go about your duties in a sort of
sleep-walking, then give them up, or indulge in
them but rarely and at judicious times ; unless,
indeed, you can train yourself to sufficient self-
control resolutely to keep their fascination under
mental lock and key — a grand piece of self-dis-
cipline in itself

Many people object to reading stories that
appear in serials. I think there is a good deal to
be said in their favour, unless, of course, one reads
too many at a time, which cannot but lead to
confusion. I have often noticed that the tales

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 249

one reads in parts arc those that remain the
longest in one's memory ; they mellow there, as
it were. During the intervals, one seems to live
with the characters, to get to know them, to
distrust some, to feel increasing affection and
admiration for others. We wonder how they arc
getting on, what will be the next news of them,
and so forth ; almost as if they were real acquaint-
ances at a distance. And it is often a pleasant
and not unprofitable subject of conversation to
discuss the incidents of a serial story between
times with others who are following the gradual
unfolding of its plan, much in the same way that
one of the good results of reading aloud is the
common interests it brings into family or friendly
life. I wish reading aloud were more in fashion.
I am always sorry when I hear girls say they
"hate" it, or declare ungraciously that they have
never been able to read aloud well, I know it
calls often fur patience and unselfishness — on the
part of the listeners sometimes as well as the
reader — but is that any real objection .' Are not
pleasures shared the truest ? And from another

250 STUDIES AND STORIES.

point of view as regards the reader — who can tell
what may be before any of us in the unseen years
to come? If not darkened vision, enfeebled phy-
sical powers of some kind are the lot of most
before the end — you may come to be very thank-
ful to have acquired the art, for a real art it is, of
reading a story aloud well, before there was actual
call for doing so. And later on, still, when the
time comes that you yourself may be dependent
on the kindliness of others for anything to cheer
or brighten monotonous days, will it not be plea-
sant to remember that when your eyes were keen
and your voice clear, you grudged neither in this
often welcome service ?

To return to the choice of books of fiction — I
should like to say a word or two about foreign
literature of this class, notably French and Ger-
man. It is most advisable not to limit your light
reading to English. Most girls nowadays can
read both French and German, the former espe-
cially, with ease and pleasure, but even in the
rare cases where it is not so, I should recommend
good translations. For it is not only of self-

PiCTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 25 I

improvement as a linguist that one should think.
The variety, the neivncss to you of the life of other
countries when well depicted, are most whole-
some and w'idening- in their influence. Nothing,
next to actual foreign travel, takes one more out
of one's self than a story of which the scene and
characters are entirely unlike one's ordinary sur-
roundings, provided of course that the essence of
all good fiction, the magic " touch of nature," be
not wanting. And one of the greatest services
fiction can render us all — brain-weary men and
women as well as young girls — is this taking us
out of ourselves. It is one of the reasons why
historical novels, or stories of long ago, are often
so refreshing — it is a great part of the secret of
the charm of fairy-tales. I remember not long
ago asking a woman who is really a deeply read
scholar, what kind of fiction she enjoyed the most.
Ilcr reply was — "Well, on the whole, I think I
would choose a good rollicking story of adventure,
such as INIr. Stevenson's * Treasure Island ; ' it is
such a change."

And as regards foreign fiction, do not be sur-

252 STUDIES AND STORIES.

prised at my recommending some French as well
as the many excellent German tales. It is a
grave mistake to imagine that all French novels
are objectionable or unwholesome. There are
some already "standard" ones — besides the two
or three — " Paul and Virginia," and " The Exiles
of Siberia," which our grandmothers were re-
stricted to — a few of George Sand's, one or two
of Balzac's, and some others which I really think
everybody who reads at all, should read. And a
fair number of modern ones — pre-eminent among
them perhaps those of Mrs. Craven, whose death
her many friends are still mourning — no mother
need object to a daughter's reading, though of
course they must be chosen with care and know'-
ledge. As works of art, too, as models of literary
skill, French novels stand unrivalled. There is no
such thing as slovenly or slip-shod writing in
French. The exigencies of the language, its
poverty of ivords as compared with our own,
necessitating extreme variety and delicacy of
expressions or combinations of words, and partly
from the same cause, the much greater precision

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 253

of grammar, make it impossible for uneducated or
half-educated authors to exist. It is to be re-
gretted that our own standard in such directions
is so much less stringent.

In closing, I should like to say a little more about
what seems to me one of the dangers of fiction
for the young, one of the shoals to be avoided.
I have already alluded to it in speaking strongly
of the advantage of those tales Avhich take us out
of ourselves. These need not necessarily be laid
in far-away places or long-ago days. Such a book,
for instance, as Miss Lawless's admirable Irish
tale, " Hurrish," a story not only of present-day
events, but of, in one sense, actually our own
countrymen and women, transports us to scenes
as unfamiliar to many as those of the Middle
Ages, thereby not only refreshing our imagination
but marvellously widening our sympathies. But,
still, when all is said and done, I fancy girls, as
girls, prefer stories of the life they themselves are
actors in. And this is natural, and to some
extent, when one takes into account the eager
anticipations, the vivid hopes, the vague wonder-

254 STUDIES AND STORIES.

merit as to the unfolding of the drama of your
own future, without all of which youth would no
longer be youth — to some extent this preference
is not to be objected to. But keep it well in
hand, beware of reading yourselves into all you
read ; try to avoid sentimentalism, as distinct
from true sentiment, in every form ; while sym-
pathizing with your heroine, let it be with Jier, not
with yourself under her name ; try to treat her
objectively, so to say. Nothing is more dwarfing
and enervating than to make all you read into a
sort of looking-glass, and often a most misleading
one ! — to measure and judge and criticize solely
by your own personal feelings and experience.

And — even with regard to the very best works
of fiction, remember they are fiction. It is highly
improbable that your own life, taken as a whole,
will resemble the most life-like story in three
volumes. Art must be art, to restrict it to literal-
ness would be to destroy it. Thoroughly to enter
into the explanation of this would lead us into
very abstruse regions, and would be, on my part,
presumption to attempt. I can but hint at it.

FICTION: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 255

Fiction cannot be biography ; an oil-painting
cannot be a photograph. In the former the c/ia-
racters must be true to life, the situations and
action never — in ordinary story-telling, that is to
say — impossible, and but rarely improbable, but
more than this one cannot ask. Into all fiction,
if it is to serve its purpose, must be infused a
breath of the ideal, it must be touched by the
wand of Hans Andersen's " Spirit of Fairy-talc."
It is the attempt at litcralness, the exaggeration
of the " realism " we hear so much about, that is
degrading and distorting art in so many direc-
tions. Pictures on canvas or in books, must be
"composed;" subjects striking or beautiful, se-
lected ; all must be grouped, harmonized, recast
by the poetic genius of the artist, the " maker."
For poetry in the widest acceptation of the word is
the soul of all art. We must see with the artist's
eyes ; it is his power of seeing as others do not,
and of partially communicating this power, which
makes him what he is.

And, after all, as regards our own experience, I
doubt if anv human bcincr even at the close of the

256 STUDIES AND STORIES.

longest life really feels at the end of the third
volume. Not only do we live again in the
interests, the hopes and fears of those around us,
but we feel our own life still. We are not meant
to close the book of ourselves, it seems to me, for
surely all that makes us, will live on ; not only our
few good deeds, our two or three completed tasks,
but better still the teaching of our failures, the
clear vision of our mistakes, of the fitfulness of
our best efforts, of the scantiness of our self-
renunciation — the influence of all this training on
our characters, which arc ourselves, must last.
And, above all, the love for God and for one an-
other, which, however imperfect now, is yet the
germ and mainspring of all true living. All these
will be found "continued," in the book of golden
letters waiting for us to read when this poor stained
first volume is done — in that new Life, " whose
portals we call Death."

THE END.

LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STRKKT AND CHARING CROSS.

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