THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

Vol. XX.—No. 999.]

[Price One Penny.

FEBRUARY 18, 1899.

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

LINNÆA; THE STORY OF A FRIENDSHIP. A DREAM OF FAIR SERVICE. “OUR HERO.” EXERCISE: IN MODERATION. THINGS IN SEASON, IN MARKET AND KITCHEN. FROCKS FOR TO-MORROW. ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE. OUR LILY GARDEN. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. SAMBO PENWIPERS AND HOW TO MAKE THEM.

{321}

LINNÆA; THE STORY OF A FRIENDSHIP.

“‘GIRLS, I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY TO YOU IF YOU WILL LISTEN.’”

All rights reserved.]

CHAPTER IV.

Next evening the girls were gathered as usual in the small schoolroom. They were allowed an hour to themselves after preparation and before prayers. This was their own hour, and many and various were the occupations and recreations indulged in then. There was a tiny room adjoining the schoolroom, where now and then a studious pupil would go at this hour to continue study. To-night it was occupied by Linnæa alone. Throughout the day her set, white face had kept all at a distance; no one dared address her, indeed, no one had anything to say that would soften the blow of yesterday’s revelation, no excuse to offer, no explanation to make.

The face which had been changing into something almost attractive during the last week, had again undergone a complete change—but was it back to the old indifference? No—something had been aroused that would never again lie dormant—if she could not love, then she would hate, and the glitter in her eyes showed only too plainly that hatred had taken the place of dawning love.

Gwendoline was not of their number that night. She too was changed; so much changed as to be almost unrecognisable. She, the queen of the school, whose will was law, and whose opinion was sought upon every question, had been to-day the quietest and most subdued of them all.

Things had not turned out as the girls had{322} anticipated. They had expected that in a little while Gwendoline would call upon them to acknowledge how well she had succeeded in her undertaking—as she had indeed been successful, far above the expectations of any of them. They had had vague ideas that Linnæa would then be gradually allowed to drop, would sink back into her old insignificance, and would be again a figure in the background, as she had been before the advent of Gwendoline.

As they sat at their various occupations—less talkative than usual—Gwendoline entered.

After glancing round the room as if to satisfy herself as to which girls were present, she said—

“Girls, I have something to say to you if you will listen.”

Immediate silence followed. What was she about to say? Would it be about Linnæa? They knew Linnæa was in the adjoining room and the dividing door was half open; would it not be better to tell Gwendoline? But, after all, what could she say that would be worse than Linnæa had already heard? Before anyone had spoken, Gwendoline began.

“You all heard my foolish vow ten days ago. Perhaps you think I have been acting all this time and have only been drawing Linnæa on to make my poor, mean triumph; but I have not. Oh, no, I have not! Almost from the first night I saw her I have loved her, and I love her now passionately. I wanted you to know it, so that you might forget my silly words. I did not know how much I loved her until her love was removed—and justly—it was right she should know it had been begun under false pretences.”

Was that tears they saw—the haughty Gwendoline in tears?

Yes, tears had begun to trickle down her cheeks, and it was in a broken voice she continued appealingly—

“She would not believe me now, although I were to tell her I loved her. Could none of you make her believe? I cannot bear her to hate me like this!”

Before anyone could speak, the door between the rooms was opened and a figure appeared. It was Linnæa. Her face was radiant and her arms outstretched. Gwendoline looked up, saw her, ran to her, and was clasped in the welcoming arms.

Onlookers were forgotten in that close embrace—words were needless at that moment.

Linnæa drew Gwendoline into the little room, and one of the girls considerately closed the door. For a few moments neither spoke, but each held the other as if at any moment someone might come to separate them. By-and-by Gwendoline said, in a voice quite unlike her usual clear tones—

“Why don’t you hate me instead of treating me like this? You told me you hated and despised me, and I deserve that you should.”

“That was before I knew you loved me at all, dear. What do I care how it was begun, so that you love me now! That is enough for me. Do you know,” she continued, after a pause, “I said I hated you, and I thought so; but now I am not sure that I did all the time. I hated myself, hated the other girls, hated even the teachers; but I am almost convinced I have never hated you!”

Two months passed after that—two happy months for Linnæa and Gwendoline, happy in their mutual friendship—and the summer vacation drew near.

About this time the dream Linnæa had dreamt the first night she saw Gwendoline came true. Her parents wrote to her that if she wished she might come home next autumn, but if she preferred to remain at school another year she might do so. Then Linnæa—she who had looked forward all her life to the time when she would be allowed to go home—wrote and told them she would stay another year.

And the Linnæa that went to India at the end of that time was very different from the one that would have gone had the hidden love in her nature not been called forth by Gwendoline. Sometimes her schoolfellows and teachers had hard work to believe she could be the same person. She would never be what the world calls beautiful, but there was a sweet, refined expression about the face which now attracted, where formerly it had repelled.

Linnæa, as I say, was improved beyond recognition; but Gwendoline also was altered, and entirely for the better. Her will—strong as ever—was exerted in a quieter and less arbitrary manner than formerly. Her influence was still as great over those with whom she came in contact; but she had had a lesson she would not easily forget, and the girl who had been in danger of growing up a heartless and cruel flirt, ambitious to draw men to her feet and wreck their happiness, developed into a pure and noble woman whose powers of fascination were only used to influence others for good, and to induce those of weaker will to follow in her footsteps.

The rare friendship, begun in such an extraordinary way, did not end with school life, but continued, beautifying and enriching the lives of both throughout well-nigh fifty years.

Frances Leamington.

A DREAM OF FAIR SERVICE.

By C. A. MACIRONE.

CHAPTER II.

DOMESTIC SERVICE.

he dream curtains were closed in darkness, but I saw the white wings of the angels shining above me, and I heard a soft thrilling voice speaking, and saying, “Will you see more?”

“If I may,” I said as I knelt. “I deserve nothing, but grant to me the honour of recording such deeds as these, that the memory of them may touch nobler hearts and stronger pens to carry on the stimulus of such examples and arouse others to like actions.”

The curtains slowly rose, and I saw a poor cottage in France, in a wide open country, long rows of poplars along straight roads going off into the distance—it was a disturbed country—time of the Revolution. I saw a poor man like his and our Master also a carpenter—like Him. He had been fostered and educated by the care and at the cost of a kind lord. One day in those troubled years, he saw standing at the door of his cottage his lord, with three little motherless children, fugitives and outcasts. The little fair Angélique of five years, Josephine of only four, and the little Count Louis, scarcely a year old. The Count was forced to fly from the country (it was for his life), and there was no living soul but Alexandre Martin to whom he could trust his children. So much of the family distress was known to Martin that he did not wonder there was no mention of any possible repayment, and he had three children of his own, and only one, was old enough to help. But in that poor home the lord’s children must find a home of love and reverence, and all who

could work worked doubly hard, day and often night, that the children might be served and treated as their faithful loyalty inspired.

I saw the table of the Chief’s children served according to their rank; they were seated at table where white bread was given them, and Alexandre waited on them as respectfully as if they had been in their own castle—alas! destroyed—while his children had the scanty brown bread of the country and they wore their poor coarse clothes to rags, whereas the young d’Aubespinés were dressed neatly. And the carpenter’s family slept on the floor that the lord’s children might enjoy the only beds the poor home could furnish.

“And all for love and nothing for reward.”

Like other great and noble actions, it was all carried out perfectly simply from the grateful loyalty of the family towards their master’s grandchildren. As time went on two noble ladies of Chartres took charge of the young girls as they grew up, and the young Count was, as he grew older, educated at a foundation endowed by his great ancestor Sully at Nogent-le-Rotrou.[1]

Years passed by, and I saw a great meeting of the Academy in Paris where the young Count and Alexandre Martin were present, and heard a voice which said—

“Martin, your task is over, you have deserved well from all good men. You have shown our age a sight only too rare—gratitude, fidelity, respect. And you, Louis d’Aubespiné, since you are present at this solemnity, may it make a deep and lasting impression on your young heart. You are entering life, as persons are now and then forced to appear on a later age, with all eyes upon you. Learn that the first of earthly blessings is to be honoured by one’s country, and pray the God who has watched over your infancy to enable you to win that blessing that depends on ourselves and that no event can rob us of. One day you will be told that illustrious blood flows in your veins, but never forget that you must trace your line as far back as Sully before you find a name worthy to stand beside that of Martin. Grow up, then, to show yourself worthy of the memory of your ancestor, the devotion of your benefactor, and the patronage of the King!”

And then the vision faded, the crowded audience disappeared and the only figure left radiant, as the curtains of my dream closed, was that of the French peasant—the Carpenter—the redresser of one of the mighty wrongs of the French Revolution.

(To be continued.)

{323}

“OUR HERO.”

A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.

By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN VIEW OF CAPTAIN PEIRCE.

s prodigious an admirer as ever of Sir John Moore, Jack?”

“’Tis not my mode, Molly, to admire a man one week, and to cast him overboard the next!”

“And if ever so be that Sir John hies him to the Indies, sure you would be set on going too?”

Jack was not so quick in response as Molly expected. Would he, or would he not? He could not feel quite sure either way. Wherever Sir John might be, there no doubt Jack would wish to be also; yet it lay within the limits of possibility that he might still more strongly desire to be somewhere else. India in those days lay very far distant. Miles are miles in these days as in those, but actual distance is greatly diminished. A man writing from India to his friends in England may now look for a reply in six or seven weeks; but then he could not look for a reply in less than as many months.

Jack felt that such a separation from people at home—from Molly in particular—would be serious. He had not thus far gauged his state of mind critically. He was not in love with anybody; he had no particular wish to marry anybody—so he would have said. Jack still counted himself exclusively in love with his profession. He looked upon Molly as his particular friend—as the being beyond all others upon whose interest and sympathy he might most surely rely. She was not his sister—he quite scouted that notion—neither was he her lover. They were simply friends—bons camarades in the more modern phraseology. Where Molly happened to be, there Jack gravitated as naturally as a stone gravitates earthward; and whatever Jack had in his mind, that he told to Molly as naturally as water pours out of a tilted jug. He cared a good deal for Molly’s opinion. If Molly disapproved of aught that he did, he was discomfited; and if Molly put anyone before himself, he was conscious of jealous sensations. That was about all.

It seemed to him this evening that Molly was looking particularly nice and ladylike—or, in the language of the day, “pleasing and genteel.” She was not pretty; Jack would have said that he did not wish her to be pretty. He liked her better as she was. But she was not without her own measure of attractiveness.

“Of course you would wish it,” Molly added decisively. “In your place I would do so. And if—if I could be a soldier, Jack, I would feel as you do. I would wish to go where Sir John goes. ’Tis a thousand pities I am a girl and cannot be a soldier.”

“You would wish to go to the Indies, if I were to stay at home?”

Molly smiled at the conceit, as it seemed to her.

“’Tis vastly more likely that you may be the one to go and I to be the stay-at-home.” She did not speak as if it were in any sense a distressing question, though as a secondary consideration she remarked placidly, “And I should miss you, Jack.”

“As much as ever you profess to miss Roy?”

Molly laughed outright this time.

“Jack—why, Jack, what a question to ask! Roy is my twin. He is more to me than all the whole world beside. He always will be more. If I did not see Roy for fifteen years—for fifty years!—it would make no difference! Oh, none whatever! Never in my life shall I care for another as I care for Roy!”

Jack laughed in his turn derisively.

“Never, never, never!” repeated Molly. “I love my father and my mother dearly, and I love Polly, and I like you too, Jack. But Roy—Roy is more to me than all. If I could see Roy——”

“That is vastly well, Molly! But wait—wait till your time shall come—till somebody will be more to you than even Roy.”

“Never!” reiterated Molly. “You mean that one day I shall have a particular preference for—for some gallant gentleman, Jack. Nay, but I shall never marry, for I could not care for any beyond my caring for Roy. And so that matter is for ever settled!”

Jack was silent—perhaps a degree nettled by Molly’s assured indifference. He did not count himself in love with Molly; but he wanted her to love him.

“’Tis no more my mode than yours to change and change about. Some people sometimes would seem to forget.” That slight pucker came again to her smooth brow.

For one instant Jack imagined the words to be a possible reflection on himself, despite what went before, and his lips opened in ready protest. Then he saw where Molly was gazing; and as his glance followed her lead, his forehead drew into, not a mere pucker, but a frown.

Polly did look uncommonly lovely; there was no denying that fact. Jack and Molly both gazed hard at her, and then their eyes met.

“She is wondrous pretty!” Molly said softly.

“But Peirce? What business has Peirce?” Jack paused, frowning still. “He knows, sure, as to Ivor?”

“Why, Jack, all the world knows! Captain Peirce has known it pretty near from the beginning.”

“And Polly permits——”

“Does Polly permit? Can Polly help it?” asked Molly. “I in her place would help it; but I am not fair like Polly, and that makes so great a difference. For her, with all the world looking and loving, ’tis not easy. If she holds aloof and seeks to check them, why, they do but come after her the more—and Polly cannot be sharp with folks. She is so sweet, and ’tis not her way. And Mrs. Bryce, too, ever talking”—Molly breathed this very low—“ever seeking to persuade Polly that Denham will forget and will care no more for her.”

Jack muttered something to himself.

“Then, ’tis her wish?”

“Mrs. Bryce’s?” Molly’s face took an arch set. “Ay, since Captain Peirce came in for a great sum of money on the death of his grandfather. He will be a richer man than Denham—by a matter of ten pounds to one pound.”

“Phew!” muttered Jack, in disgust. “Ivor will have enough. But as to Polly—I cannot verily believe that her affections are engaged in any other direction.”

“Nor do I believe it, Jack. Yet—I am not always sure.”

“If she casts him off, she will deserve to suffer for it, all her life long. She will lose one of the best men living.”

“Second only to Sir John Moore!”

“’Tis easy to jeer! If you knew Sir John as I do——”

“Nay, but Jack—nay, you need not be vexed with me,” protested Molly. “I did not jeer truly. And ’tis a fact that when last I saw and spoke with Sir John, he brought to my mind the thought of Denham. Not that the two have the same face or the same way, but that both are soldierly and tall, and each holds his head as stately as a prince. And for the matter of Sir John Moore—why, I am proud of him as ever you can be.”

Jack nodded slightly, mollified at once by her apologetic tone. His gaze returned to Polly.

“And for the matter of Denham,”{324} Molly continued, dropping her voice once more, “he has been always as a brother to me; and it would go hard with me to believe any ill of him. Yet—I wonder often that no letter comes from him to Polly. And Polly watches and grieves, I know, though she says little, and will not talk of him. Sure, if he had writ to her often, one letter now and again would find its way hither.”

“Who can say? But I would distrust the post and Boney a thousand times, before ever I would doubt Ivor,” Jack answered firmly. “And Polly, if indeed she knows him, sure would feel the same. He is no man to change.”

“Nor, I think, is Polly the girl to change—either!”

“In this brilliant assemblage of rank and fashion, though lightened by the fire of genius and radiant with feminine charms, there is for me but one star of greatest magnitude, before which all lesser orbs fade into insignificance.”

So spoke Captain Albert Peirce in the ears of Polly Keene; and he felt that he had expressed himself with the utmost elegance. Gentlemen in those days were prone to more flowing speech than they are in these; and such speeches did not necessarily mean much.

Ninety years later the grandson or great-grandson of Captain Peirce would merely drag his moustache, and mutter, “Awfully pretty girl!” But the two modes of expression, though rather unlike, probably implied and imply much the same in the end.

Captain Peirce did not pull his moustache—partly because it was not the fashion to do so, but yet more for the sufficient reason that he had none to pull. He bent a little nearer to Polly; and that was the moment when Jack’s glance followed Molly’s in their direction.

Polly did not appear to repulse him. She did not even exert herself to turn her head away. She had so much of this sort of thing! One flowery speech more or less made very little difference. Had it not been for the persistent pressure put upon her by Mrs. Bryce, Polly would not have imagined that Captain Peirce meant or could mean anything seriously. She stood in one of her most graceful attitudes, toying with a large fan; and the light from innumerable wax candles fell upon her round fair arms.

“Can you by any chance divine who that star of greatest magnitude may be, sweet Polly?”

This was audacious, and Captain Peirce fully expected a rebuff in consequence.