THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

Vol. XX.—No. 1030.]

[Price One Penny.

SEPTEMBER 23, 1899.

[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

SOLITUDE. THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH. “UPS AND DOWNS.” CHRONICLES OF AN ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN RANCH. IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE. HOUSEHOLD HINTS. AYONT THAE HILLS. SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE. THE PLEASURES OF BEE-KEEPING. GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM. DIET IN REASON AND IN MODERATION. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

[From photo: By Photographic Union, Munich.

SOLITUDE.

All rights reserved.]

{818}

SOLITUDE.

By W. T. SAWARD.

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

By ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.

CHAPTER XXVI.

DESIRE FULFILLED.

The great joy grew more credible when all its story was told.

The glad tidings had been brought in by an Atlantic liner. It appeared that when the Slains Castle had got well over half of her Pacific voyage, she had encountered a great storm, and had foundered upon the reefs among a small group of islands, all her boats being lost or destroyed. The captain, disabled, with his crew and the solitary passenger, had however managed to land on one of the larger islands, whose simple natives received them kindly, and put them into the way of subsisting after their own fashion. There they had lived, roughly and hardly indeed, and cut off from all communication with home, or with civilisation, upheld only by the hope that some ship, in some way diverted from its course, might eventually discover them and take them off. Instead of such a ship, however, their party was reinforced by a solitary white man, who made his way to them from his own refuge on one of the smaller islands. How had he got there? they asked eagerly. He told them the truth: he was “a bad character”—a man who had done desperate deeds of many sorts,

and he was there because he was “a castaway” from an American ship—he could scarcely tell whether by accident or design. He seemed to think the latter the most likely and the most natural alternative in his case. Hunger and solitude on a bare rock in the wide ocean, had somewhat tamed him, and the consciousness of a common fate soon absorbed him into the little brotherhood of the Slains Castle.

He had been with them some months when some of the party secured a half-broken empty open boat, which seemed to have been washed off from a passing schooner. This they patched up, and then they began to think whether some of them might not make one last dash for the release of themselves and the rest. The “castaway” was quite ready to take to the sea again; he did not seem to know fear, or he believed he held a charmed life. He was an expert seaman, and of really powerful physique. Another must go with him, and another only. The captain’s arm being still disabled, the man selected as fittest for the expedition was the first mate. Despite all dangers their wild voyage was safely accomplished; a civilised port was reached, and a little steamer was at once despatched to the island to bring off the rest of the shipwrecked party. The ship owners had determined not to be premature in giving this good news. They had waited till every report was verified. Now, any hour might bring telegrams from Captain Grant and Charlie that they were safe on American soil, and hastening across

the continent to take their Atlantic passage home.[1]

Of course there was wild and glad excitement in the little house with the verandah. But Lucy’s own joy was still and solemn. The others thought her very strong and calm. But she knew that she often asked herself whether she were waking or dreaming? She knew that she realised anew the distance and the dangers between herself and her beloved. After the glad telegram duly arrived and she knew the very name of the Atlantic liner on which Charlie was speeding towards her, a clouded sky or a rising wind would suffice to make her tremble! Ah, she had learned

and the next lesson of her life was to be the bringing-down of that mountain-top vision of serenity and security, and the possessing of it still among the mists and twists of the level lands. She had learned that love is eternal, that love is safe when out of sight—now she had to learn that time is only a part of Eternity, and that what is safe out of our reach, cannot be in danger while it is within it.

She thought often in those days of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus. They, too, like her, had been through the bitterness of death. Was it henceforth abolished for them, so that they could say, “O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” Or did the impression wear off their souls, so that they had to live through all their grief again?

She went on, wondering. When we are told that in the mysterious future there “is to be no more sea,” we feel that the language is only used as a powerful image, to show us that there shall be no more danger, no more parting. But after all, what are danger and parting, but for their fear and pain? Is it not really those that “shall be no more”? It seemed to Lucy that haply in the highest ministries of life’s immortal service the paths of those who would be “about their Father’s business” must still sometimes swerve from one another. If “no more sea” was a symbol of no more danger, and no more parting, did not that in turn mean an abiding sense that all is secure, a present consciousness that all parting involves joyful reunion? Then if our souls, still clad in mortal weakness, can but attain to this “perfect love which casts out fear,” should we not be in Heaven’s peace already?

Lucy resolved to go to Liverpool to meet the steamer which had Charlie on board. She resolved to go alone. For the first time since his father went away she would leave Hugh, assured now that he was surrounded by wise kindness. She longed for absolute silence and{819} solitude on her journey to this reunion, well nigh as sacred and solemn as those generally guarded by the secrecy of death.

She preferred to go without any “seeing off.” Those in her home, those who loved her best, probed her feeling on this head, and yielded to it. They parted from her on her own threshold.

“We will come to meet you both when you return,” they said.

Husband and wife met. It was in a crowd of strangers, and nobody there took particular notice of the brown, lean, sinewy man, who clasped a silvery-haired young woman in his arms. Then they held each other apart for one moment, and gazed at each other, noting all that was gone—all that was changed, and all—ay, all!—that remained for ever!

As for the conversation—the questions, the answers, the narrations—that interrupted the rapt silences of this single day reserved for themselves only, what was it but simply the story which has been already told?

“They will be all at home to receive us,” Lucy said, as, her hand clasped in her husband’s, she told of the loyal friendships which had closed around her terrible waiting-time. “They are all still there, just as they have been. The house may be small for us all, yet I felt sure this would be your wish.”

“You knew your husband,” said Charlie, “and if our friends will stay, they shall stay as we are—for another year. By that time we shall have got our lives into their regular grooves again—and then, maybe, we shall all move together into a larger house. As it is God’s will that the solitary shall be set in families, Lucy, surely it is never more so than when the solitary have upheld the family.”

(To be concluded.)

“UPS AND DOWNS.”

A TRUE STORY OF NEW YORK LIFE.

By N. O. LORIMER.

CHAPTER IV.

hen the hard frost had broken, and the streets were full of slush and melting snow, Ada had to spend her five cents going in the Fifth Avenue stage-coach to and from her business, for, even with rubbers on, she had got her feet so wet and her skirts so destroyed that she found that it was in the end cheaper to drive than to walk. The children, too, had found it necessary to drive to school. Marjory had been very troublesome of late; she had been grumbling and repining at her restricted life, saying that she would rather make friends with the girls whom Ada considered vulgar and beneath her, than have such a dull, cheerless time. Ada had noticed that her eccentric old man had not been in the stage-coach for some time past, and she wondered what had become of him. She was sitting waiting for the boarding-house dinner-bell to ring (in the public sitting-room), when the fat lady, who took such an inquisitive interest in her and her little sisters, came in.

“Well, Ada Nicoli,” she said in her rough friendly way, “don’t you wish you were the young lady.”

“What young lady?” said Ada.

The fat lady put the New York Herald down on Ada’s lap.

“Read it,” she said. “It’s the maddest thing you ever heard. The crazy old man whom you’ve often seen in the Fifth Avenue stage-coach, and who ate his bit of bread and cheese every day on the public seat in Madison Square, and looked as poor as any tramp, died a week ago.”

“Oh,” said Ada regretfully; “is he dead?”

She had grown to look upon him as one of her friends in the big cruel city, and now he had gone too.

“Yes, he’s dead,” the fat woman said emphatically; “and he’s left a mighty pile of dollars behind him. He used to stint himself of house-fuel, and go to bed whenever he got home from business on a winter’s day to save light, and wore clothes a coloured man wouldn’t give to his father. What’s the use of saving like that if you’re going to leave all your fortune to a total stranger.”

“Poor old man,” the girl said; “he was really rather mad, but somehow I liked him; he seemed to belong more to the last century than to this.”

“Well, it appears he’s left every dollar he’s got to some girl that he thought deserved some money, a milliner’s girl, the papers say, who once saved his life in a snowstorm or something like that.”

Ada read the long and highly-dramatic account of the old man’s curious will.

“Yes, I wish I were the girl,” she said; “but I fear there’s no fairy prince in disguise watching my poor trivial round and common task. But just fancy, a girl earning her own living suddenly to find herself an heiress!”

The boarding-house bell sounded, and the hungry children came bounding down to dinner.

“Ada,” whispered Marjory at table, “a man came to see you this morning, and I said you were out. He asked me a lot of questions, and I answered before I remembered that perhaps you would rather I didn’t.”

“What sort of questions?” Ada said smiling, and hoping that at last they were going to receive news of their father.

“Where you worked, and how you went to work, and if we were your only sisters. He was quite a nice sort of man.”

“A gentleman, I think,” Sadie said with a great air of worldly wisdom. “He said he would call again after dinner to-night.”

“Did he not tell you what he wanted,” Ada asked.

“No,” Marjory said, “and it was only after he had gone that we found out how much we had told him, all about mother, and everything. Do you mind, Ada?”

“No,” Ada replied; “but try in future, Marjory, to remember that you are getting too big a girl to talk to strange gentlemen in that confidential way.”

After dinner that night the Irish servant toiled up to the top of the high house to tell Ada Nicoli that there was a strange gentleman waiting to see her down below.

“And sure and I can’t think why you want to come up to this attic in the evenin’, instead of joining with the company in the parlour. It would save my poor legs toiling up to tell you when your friends arrive.”

“It’s the first time anyone has come to see me, Bridget,” Ada answered, “and I like having the children with me in the evening.”

Ada might more truthfully have remarked that she did not wish her little sisters to enjoy the company of the young business men who frequented the boarding-house parlour in the evening.

When she entered the parlour, a keen-looking elderly man rose from his seat and bowed to her. “Have I the pleasure of addressing Miss Ada Nicoli?”

Ada bowed.

“I am Mr. Riggs.” He looked round the room. “Have you any place where I could talk to you in private, ma’am?”

Ada grew nervous from fear of some bad news, but she had learnt to control her feelings before the curious eyes of the boarders.

“I have no private sitting-room,” she said, “but perhaps I might take you into the bureau.”

“Thank you, ma’am, I will not detain you long.” When they were seated in the bureau, which the lady of the house had willingly vacated on hearing Ada’s reason, he said, “I have come to tell you a piece of news which I think will greatly astonish you. I came here this morning and learnt the information from your little sisters which identifies you in my mind with the young lady I was seeking.”

Ada was turning from hot to cold and her hands were tightly clasped together.

“My dear young lady,” he continued, “I am Mr. Riggs of the firm of Jefferson Riggs & Co., lawyers, No. 10054, Broadway. Perhaps you have read in the papers of the death of an eccentric old gentleman who was a well-known figure in the Fifth stage-coach, and in Madison Square Gardens?”

Ada nodded her head. Her heart was beating too quickly to allow her brain to seize the points of the lawyer’s story.

“I was his lawyer,” he said, “and for many years transacted all his business matters, but I had no idea of his personal wealth. He had altered his will many times during the last few years, leaving his money first to one charitable institution and then to another; but in his last will, which he made as far back as eight months ago, he has left you his entire fortune.”

“Me?” Ada gasped. “Me? What do you mean? He didn’t even know my name.”

“Yes, he did. He found it out quite easily. Yes, my dear young lady. You will now be{820} almost as wealthy as if your father had never failed.”

“Oh, stop a minute,” Ada cried, “till I can really understand it. Am I the milliner’s girl that was mentioned in the papers? Oh, I’m quite, quite certain you have made some mistake. Do have pity on me, sir; I have suffered so much,” and she put up her hand to her head and swayed a little backwards and forwards.

“Oh, please don’t faint, my dear young lady. I am no ladies’ man, and I don’t know what to do.”

“No, I will not faint,” replied Ada. “It is really wonderful what a girl can bear. But I hope you are not deceiving me.”

“I am quite sure I am not, if you are not deceiving me, and personating Ada Nicoli. I wish I could have broken it to you more gently; but I am no ladies’ man.”

“You have done it very kindly,” the girl said, with a great sob of joy in her throat, “only I wish the old man was alive, that I could thank him, and love him a little. He was very lonely, I think.”

“Yes, he was very lonely,” the lawyer said, “and it is strange what an impression you made upon him.”

“I don’t see how I could,” Ada replied simply. “I never did anything.”

“I think I can understand,” the lawyer said with a touch of gallantry which showed that he was not such a poor ladies’ man as he had asserted, bringing a pretty flush to her cheek.

After they had talked a few minutes, Ada said—

“May I call the children down to tell them?”

“Certainly,” the lawyer replied. “The affair is no secret.”

When Ada told the children that they were no longer poor, and that they need not live in the top attic-room in a boarding-house, they took the news more complacently than their sister had done.

“I’m glad we can go to a decent school,” Marjory said, little knowing how her words hurt Ada, who had worked her fingers to the bone to pay for her middle-class schooling.

“I wish we had been left a new poppa, instead of some money,” Sadie said regretfully. “If we’re rich again, you’ll drive about with mumma, I suppose, and we won’t have any fun. I like being poor.”

“And living in a hen-roost?” Ada asked laughingly.

Sadie had always called their low-roofed attic a hen-roost.

“Yes, ’cause I like sleeping with you better than with a cross nurse.”

The old lawyer got up. He had to take his spectacles off and rub them before he could see his way across the room.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “you have made their poverty so attractive that the old gentleman’s fortune is scarcely appreciated.”

“I must spend it very wisely,” the girl said, “as it was so carefully hoarded together. It is all so wonderful that I cannot believe it is true.”

“I should like the old man to have had the pleasure that has been mine in bringing you the good news,” the lawyer said, bowing himself out. “We shall have many business matters to discuss later on, but I will leave you now to enjoy the new good fortune with your sisters.” He came back and said rather nervously, “Remember, my dear, that you can draw on me for any ready money you may require. I will leave you a hundred dollars now just to pay for immediate expenses, and to-morrow you can have ten hundred more if you like.”

When Ada Nicoli was going upstairs, as if floating on wings rather than walking, she met the fat lady boarder coming down.

“Well, I declare, Ada Nicoli, you look as if the world wasn’t good enough for you to-night. There’s enough happiness in your eyes to light a whole street. Has your strange visitor brought you good news?”

“Yes,” Ada replied, “wonderful news. He has just told me that I am the little milliner’s girl whom the eccentric old gentleman thought deserved some money.”

“Sakes alive!” the fat boarder exclaimed. “Let me look at you,”—and she took the girl by her shoulders and scanned her face.

“Are you the girl he left all the money to?”

“Yes,” answered Ada; “isn’t it extraordinary? I can’t quite believe it is true! It’s just like a fairy story.”

In another moment the girl was clasped in the arms of the good-natured woman, and was so cried over and petted that all the boarders came out to hear the news, which Ada could not tell them for the fulness of her heart, and the fat boarder did it but badly, for she was laughing and crying at one and the same time.

[THE END.]

CHRONICLES OF AN ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN RANCH.

By MARGARET INNES.

CHAPTER XII.

THE RESERVOIR—CHINESE MEDICINES—DUST—ADVANTAGES OF THE LIFE—THE RAINS—FLOODS.

hat summer, our first on the ranch, we made a large reservoir to hold 200,000 gallons. There was a convenient gulch or dip, which drained a fair stretch of hill slope, and which lent itself well for the purpose. We meant also to run our share of the flume water into this reservoir whenever it was not being used on the ranch.

Many waggon loads of sand from the Silvero Valley had to be hauled up by the little grey team, and endless barrels of cement from the station at El Barco five miles away. It was a long tiresome job. There was plenty of rock, with which to build the dam, lying about on the hills, but to lift these pieces on to the sledge, improvised for this purpose, and bring them over hill and dale to the reservoir site and there unload them, was both very hard work and at times a little dangerous, for the rocks were often so large that they were not easily controlled, and were always threatening to roll over on to the feet or hands of the “master builder” and his men.

There were some bad bruises before all the names of the workers were written on the cement top of the wall as an artistic finish to the dam.

That was a very dry year, the summer extending till December 5th, and after a dry winter too. For this reason the breaking up of the ground was all the harder, especially that part which had been trodden hard by cattle grazing for many years.