Read Ebook: The Girl's Own Paper Vol. XX. No. 1028 September 9 1899 by Various

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 309 lines and 22268 words, and 7 pages

SEPTEMBER 9, 1899.

OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES;

OR,

VILLAGE ARCHITECTURE OF BYGONE TIMES.

We have now completed our task of describing the cottages and other architectural objects in English villages as they existed in bygone times, a few have escaped destruction down to our own day, but it is too much to be feared even these will, in a few years, have ceased to exist. The last half century, over which our personal recollection extends, has witnessed such a vast amount of destruction that it is difficult to believe in anything remaining at the end of another half century.

The fact is, railways, competition, machinery, the concentration of our "industrial classes" in large cities, the gradual extinction of the yeoman class, and the difficulty to obtain a bare subsistence as a small tenant farmer, have completely changed the condition of country life, and if we are ever again to have pretty villages they will be inhabited by ladies and gentlemen glad to escape occasionally from the toil of town life, and to recruit themselves in pretty cottages amidst charming scenery, pleasant gardens, and all the sweetness of a country life without its sordid toil, losses and vexations. We give a view of a home of this kind situated amidst the exquisite scenery of the Surrey hills as a pattern cottage of the future.

VARIETIES.

A LADY PHYSICIAN IN THE HOLY LAND.

A Scottish clergyman tells us that when travelling recently in Palestine, not far from the fountains of Banias, he saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the breeze.

"Coming up," he says, "we found a cluster of tents, and standing to welcome us an American lady who is doing a splendid work as a physician in Palestine and northern Syria. For eight months of the year she lives in tents, moving from Acohs in the south to Baalbek in the north. Having a full medical qualification, she is the only lady permitted to practise in Syria, and as she is something of a specialist in eye diseases, she draws patients from far and near."

WHO WANTS WORK?

We cannot all be heroes, And thrill a hemisphere With some great daring venture, Some deed that mocks at fear; But we can fill a lifetime With kindly acts and true; There's always noble service For noble souls to do.

TO WHICH CLASS DO YOU BELONG?--"The human race is divided," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, "into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit and inquire, 'Why wasn't it done the other way?'"

BORROWED MONEY.

MUSICAL PERFORMERS.--The question has recently been asked whether it is justifiable for a pianist to express to her hearers what she conceives to be the emotional characteristics of the music she is playing by facial play and gesticulations? Certainly not.

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

GOOD SAMARITANS.

In this hour of domestic desertion, Miss Latimer, remembering Mrs. Grant's injunction, allowed Lucy to do most of the necessary housework, while she herself undertook the outdoor errands and the function of "answering" the door bell.

A letter duly arrived from Clementina's relatives at Hull. It said little more than the telegram, save that she had come there very "worn out and ill," having found her place "too trying" for her. She would have to take "a long rest." It was requested that her box should be packed up and forwarded "along with the month's wage due to her."

Clementina had taken her departure when only twenty days of that "month" had elapsed. But Lucy resolved to take no notice of that fact, but to send the full sum. She herself packed the box and despatched it. She found therein about half a packet of mourning envelopes of such singular width of border that she showed them to Miss Latimer and Mr. Somerset, who, however, kept their own counsel on this head. Lucy did not accept Mr. Somerset's advice about the letter in which she enclosed her postal order. He wished her to ignore all that had been discovered since Clementina's departure and to let the whole matter drop. Lucy could not accept this as her duty. As soon as she knew of Clementina's safety and whereabouts, she had telegraphed to Mrs. Bray's Rachel, that her mind too might be set at ease about her old acquaintance. In return she had received a very simple, straightforward letter from Rachel, expressing sincere regret that all this trouble had been caused to Mrs. Challoner through one whom she had introduced. She reiterated the perfect respectability of the Gillespies and the high esteem in which they had been held in their own neighbourhood. Rachel was naturally deeply concerned about Clementina herself. "People can't help going out of their mind," she wrote, "but then it ought to be somebody's duty to keep them from troubling others or disgracing themselves."

The same point impressed Lucy. She felt herself bound to tell the plain truth to those who were now harbouring Clementina, and whose actions might decide that unhappy woman's future course. Tom was inclined to say, "Let them find her out for themselves, as we had to do"--a blunt egotism which didn't influence Lucy for a moment. Mr. Somerset gave counsels of reticence, but did not support them by any moral reasons. In fact he candidly admitted, "I am thinking chiefly of you, Mrs. Challoner, and advising you for your own sake. I don't want you to have any more trouble. I know how--in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred--such a warning as you wish to give will be received."

That decided Lucy. If something was right to do, then she was not to be withheld by any self-consideration from doing it.

"How should I feel," she asked, "if some morning I open the newspaper and find that Clementina has taken another situation and has perhaps killed a baby or set a house on fire? It would be bad enough if she only made others suffer as we have done; but of merely that, of course, we should never hear."

"'To care for others that they may not suffer As we have suffered is divine well-doing, The noblest vote of thanks for all our sorrows,'"

quoted Miss Latimer, "and I've often seen that work in many ways which shallow sentimentalists do not recognise."

"I know that few lunatics who eventually fall into terrible crime have not given forewarnings which, if heeded, might have spared them and their victims," Mr. Somerset conceded. "But still, under all the circumstances, I feel as if it is our first duty to consider Mrs. Challoner and to save her from the abuse and insult which her interference on this score may probably bring."

But Lucy determined on her course, and she wrote a brief account of what had happened during Clementina's stay and had been discovered since her departure.

"At best there will be no answer," remarked Mr. Somerset.

"That will be very rude," said Miss Latimer.

"I shall be quite satisfied with that," returned the gentleman significantly.

They were still awaiting developments when, a morning or two afterwards, the door bell summoned Miss Latimer to receive a bright-faced, pleasant-voiced woman, who inquired for "Mrs. Challoner," and asked to be announced as "'Mrs. May from Deal--Jarvist May's widow.' Mrs. Challoner will recollect me."

No announcement was needed. Lucy, who, according to her new nervous habit, had been listening on the stairs, was instantly sobbing in the arms of this woman, who had gone through all the worst which Lucy had to fear. The blessed tears had come!

To "Jarvist May's widow" Lucy found it easy to confide the fears--nay, the absolute despair--which now filled her concerning Charlie's fate. To none of the others had she done this. They had tendered their hopes to her, and she, little knowing how faint they felt them, had made as though she could at least entertain these. In that way they had sought to comfort her, and she had accepted their kind intention, even as gentle hearts accept the little useless gifts of childish good-will. But this widowed woman brought consolation up from great depths lying calm beneath whatever wind might rise.

"God has got you, and God has got your husband, wherever he is. How can you be apart, my dear? Why, dear, if God has taken him to Himself, he may be nearer to you now than in the days when he was living here and had to go out to his business, leaving you at home. And if he's still somewhere on earth, dear, don't you hope he's taking care of himself and keeping bright and cheery in the faith that you are doing the same? If he is living and can't send word to you, that must feel as bad for him as for you to get no word. Don't you hope that he trusts you are keeping up? And as he is certainly all right--SOMEWHERE--you've just got to keep up for his sake. Yes, my dear, cry, cry"--as Lucy looked up with a piteous attempt to smile. "He wouldn't mind that so long as it does you good and washes the clouds out of your heart. That's what tears are meant for--to make us smile the sweeter afterwards."

"I came away to see you just as soon as I could," she narrated simply. "Thought I, poor dear, she's got to go through for months the waiting and the watching that I had only for a few hours. All I can say to her is, that I know what those few hours were, and that none but God could have helped me through them, and none but God can help her through her longer trial. But that's enough, for God is over everything, and under everything, and in everything; and if He upholds you, so does everything else."

She joined with Mrs. Grant's counsel, in whispering to Miss Latimer that nothing would be so good for Lucy as to proceed with her "regular work," to keep her life on in a straight line from where her husband left her, and not to have to face any "beginning again." She was actually glad to find that Lucy's present absence from her classes arose from a sheer practical necessity, and not from any yielding to grief.

Then Mrs. May had a most unexpected proposal to make. It appeared that she had let her house furnished for a whole year to people who were to provide their own service. She had not quite relished doing this, as it deprived her of her "work," but she had felt she ought not to refuse a good offer, since her last season had been as a whole but a poor one, while her strength had somewhat failed under a great rush of summer visitors for a few short weeks.

"So I thought I would go into rooms in Deal, and make myself as useful as I could among my neighbours," she said. "I thought to myself it might even be a bit of training against old age. I do pray I may be of use to somebody till my dying day. But it's in God's hands, and when I've seen old folks kept alive so long and so helpless that others talk about 'a happy release,' it has come into my mind that, after all, maybe God is giving them their rest on this side of the grave instead of the other, and that they'll be off and up and about their Master's business, while some who have been working to the end here will be getting their bit of sleep in Paradise."

When Mrs. May heard of Lucy's household predicament, a fresh thought had come into her head; and so her suggestion was that she herself should take up her abode in the little house with the verandah, and by "keeping it going" lift a weight of care from its young mistress's mind.

"I won't take any wages," she said. "No, please, I'd rather not. There's a good income for me for this year at least from my furnished house. After that we might speak of the matter again, when we see how things go--but not before--no, I'll not hear of it. For, you see, dear Mrs. Challoner, work may be a little harder in this London house than by the sunny sea-shore, and I may need a little help from the outside, and there will be that for you to pay for. I feel you may well look a little downcast at the thought of outside help, for I know the trouble it often gives even in a quiet town, to say nothing of London. But you see I shall be always to the fore, as you could not be yourself; and I am different from young servants, who are often corrupted by charwomen. When a body works with another, one soon finds out what that other is, and how far one's confidence may go. And we won't be in any hurry to engage anybody. Maybe we shall just come across the right person."

As a matter of fact, "the right person" was actually preparing to cross London even while Mrs. May was speaking. Only a hour or two afterwards she presented herself at Mrs. Challoner's door in the person of her old servant, Pollie!

"I often wondered why I never heard from you," said Lucy to her old servant. "If I had known you were again in London, I should have come to see you."

"Would you really, ma'am?" cried Pollie, delighted. "I thought you were so angry with me for leaving you."

"No, Pollie," Lucy answered, "I was not angry, and I am very sorry indeed if I seemed so. I was bitterly disappointed and vexed because I had not dreamed of your leaving, and it meant taking everything up in a different way from what I had thought. I was under a terrible strain too at that time, so that any added pressure made me cry out, and it may have seemed like anger when it was only pain."

"As it would have been," interjected Lucy.

"But when it came out how you had been situated with the master going away, and how good you'd been to my sisters, when they were so weakly, then husband sang another tune. 'Them that considers our families,' says he, 'we ought to consider theirs, leastways unless we're such poor stuff that we must be always a-getting and never a-giving.' And I'm sure I needn't have been in such a hurry; he'd have waited a bit if I'd promised him, 'twasn't his own changing he was feared of but mine! And we've never got rightly settled, and the poor baby's suffered a good deal with the moving about, and me getting so tired and worried."

"But it is a dear little baby," Lucy said, stroking the grave little white face. "I am so glad to see it, Pollie. It is so kind of you to bring it."

Pollie was tearful again.

"I've got a favour to ask, ma'am," she said. "We've never hit on a name for him yet, and says husband to me, after he read that bit of troublesome news in the paper--'I wonder if your mistress would let us call him after your master. It would show her that we did know who is good folks, though we didn't always act like it.' That's the best of husband," Pollie explained, wiping away her tears. "When there's anything he thinks a bit wrong, he never puts it on 'you,' he always says 'we.' And says I to him, 'I'll go straight off and ask her, and if she thinks it's too much of a liberty, I'll ask if she'd like better that we named the boy after her son, little Master Hugh, God bless him!'"

Lucy's own eyes were full of tears. She had taken the baby and was pressing it to her bosom.

"And I daresay the master thought pretty hardly of me when he did hear," said Pollie woefully.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet