"Your pater would never let you do anything for money, he is so rich."

"But simply to have a lot of money won't satisfy me, although I'd like to earn some. To be a teacher would suit me best, and keep my mind from rusting."

"You are awfully clever, you know. I never cared for books and never worked till one day—a day I shall never forget."

"What was it about, Harry? Tell me."

The two had chattered about their own concerns without noticing that the rest of the "Bunch" had kept to the left side of the lake while they had skated straight forward ignoring the deep bay, and were now nearing the right shore. The ice was smooth as glass, each was an accomplished skater, and together they had made a brilliant run without a pause after the tightening of the screw. Now, hot and breathless, they paused for a few moments, and only then realised that they were about three miles distant from the rest of the party. Harry drew off his thick woollen mittens and unloosened his muffler, as together they stood looking at the glistening landscape around them.

"I think we ought to turn; we are a long way from home."

"Just let us touch shore first and get to the 'Black Stone'; that would be a record spin."

"All right, then, come along, and tell me what happened that day. You know."

Hand-in-hand the two started off once more in the direction of the "Black Stone." Far and wide there was not a human being visible. Not a sound except the swish, swish of their skates and their own voices fell on the clear, still air of the glorious night.

[Sidenote: Harry's Story]

"I never was clever," began Harry, "and am not now. I used to be quite satisfied that kings and other celebrated people really had lived and died without learning a whole rigmarole about their lives. Really it did not interest me a bit. Geography was the same, composition was worse, mathematics was worst. I seemed always to be in hot water at school. Then one day the old man (we always called Jackson Spencer that) said after class was over—and of course I hadn't answered once—'Elliott, go to my room and wait for me.' I tell you, Gladys, I shivered; I didn't know what I was in for. Old man walked right in and shut the door, after having left me alone about ten minutes, and just said, 'Come and sit down, boy, I want to say something to you.' You could have knocked me over I was so surprised. He then said: 'Look here, Elliott, you are not a bad chap, but do you know that you are as blind as an owl?' I rubbed my eyes and said, 'No, sir, I can see all right.'

"'You must be very short-sighted, then.'

"Of course I said nothing.

"'Did you ever think why your father sent you to school?'

"'No-o, sir.'

"'I thought so, but I'm going to tell you. He is not a rich man, Harry, but he pays me to teach you all that will help you to rise above the level of an ignorant labourer. Culture and education are as necessary to a gentleman as bread is for food. I am doing my utmost, but I cannot pour instruction down your throat any more than you can make a horse drink by leading him to the trough. Now look here, boy, with all your faults you are no coward; haven't you the pluck to get to know yourself and stop being a shirker? Think what that means! A fellow never to be trusted, a lazy, good-for-nothing, cowardly loafer. Remember, if you don't work, you are taking your father's money under false pretences, which is only another word for dishonesty. Think about what I've said; turn over a page and start a new chapter. You can go, and mind—I trust you.'"

"What a splendid old boy!" exclaimed Gladys. "What did you do?"

"Do! I worked like a beaver for the balance of school life, I'd so much to make good. We shall touch the 'Stone' in a couple of——"

The sentence was never finished, for without warning, out of sight of a helping hand, Gladys and Harry skated right through a large hole, left by an ice-cutter without being marked by boughs, into ten feet of freezing water.

The shock was tremendous, but being fine swimmers they naturally struck out, trying to grasp the slippery ice.

To his horror Harry knew that his gloves were in his pocket, and now, try as he would, his hands would not grip the ice. Gladys had been entrusted to his care: not only would his life be the price of having separated from the "Bunch," but infinitely worse, she must share the same fate.

Despair lent him strength to support the girl with his left arm while he tried to swing his right leg over and dig the heel of his skate into the ice.

But all in vain, he tried and tried again. Numbed with cold, he felt himself growing weaker and he knew that the end could not be far off should the next attempt fail.

One more struggle—one last effort—and the skate, thank Heaven, had caught! Then came the last act. Clenching his teeth and wildly imploring help from on high, Harry gathered together his last remnant of strength, and swung the girl on to the ice—Gladys was saved!

The boy's heart beat, his panting breath seemed to suffocate him, the strain had been so fearful; now he could do no more, he seemed to make no effort to save himself.

"Harry! Harry!" cried Gladys; "you must try more! I'm all right and can help you—see, I am here close by!" she cried, frantic with terror. "It will be all right directly," she added bravely as she lay flat down and crept up to the edge of the ice.

The boy heard her encouraging words, but still made no progress.

"You are not doing your best, Harry! Think of me, if not of yourself. Remember, I am alone and so frightened. Oh! do be quick. Here, take hold of my hands."

This time her words went home, and the boy, half-paralysed with cold and completely worn out, remembered his responsibility.

"Come along, Harry—hold hard! Yes, I can bear the weight!" called out the courageous girl as she lay in her freezing garments on the ice, the strain of the lad's weight dragging her arms almost from their sockets.

[Sidenote: Pluck Rewarded]

At last their pluck was rewarded. Heaven was good to them, and Harry Elliott, trembling in every limb, his teeth chattering, his face pale as the moon, stood by Gladys on solid ice. There was no time to waste in words, the boy merely stretched out his hand to the exhausted girl and started across the lake to the nearest house.

Not a word was spoken; they just sped onward, at first slowly and laboriously, until the blood began to circulate and progress became easier. When they reached the shore, they stood encased in solid ice, their wet clothes frozen stiff by the keen frost of the glorious night.

Not for some days did Gladys betray any signs of the mental shock she had received. Anxious parents and a careful doctor kept her in bed for a week, while Harry occupied his usual place at the bank.

It was during that week that the change in Gladys took place. She had plenty of time for thought. Recollections of her nearness to death, of her horror while under the ice, of her terror when saved, of seeing her brave rescuer sink, all these scenes made a deep and lasting impression on her, and she realised that life can never be made up of pleasures only.

When she met the rest of the "Bunch," her quietness puzzled them, her determination to go no more on the ice distressed them. But in her own heart Gladys felt that she had gained by her approach to death, for in the deadly struggle she had been brought near to God. As for Harry Elliott, need I forecast the trend of the two lives that were so nearly taken away together?



[Sidenote: Mike, the old Raven, is the central figure of this story for younger girls.]

The Pearl-rimmed Locket

BY

M. B. MANWELL

March came in with a roar that year. The elms of Old Studley creaked and groaned loudly as the wild wind tossed them about like toys.

"I'm frighted to go to bed," wailed little Jinty Ransom, burying her face in Mrs. Barbara's lap, when she had finished saying her prayers.

"Ah, dear, 'taint for we to be frightened at anything God sends! Do'ent He hold the storms in the hollow of His hand? And thou, dear maid, what's wind and tempest that's only 'fulfilling His word' compared wi' life's storms that will gather over thy sunny head one day, sure as sure?" Mrs. Barbara, the professor's ancient housekeeper, laid her knotted hand on the golden curls on her lap.

But "thou, dear maid" could not look ahead so far. It was more than enough for Jinty that Nature's waves and storms were passing over her at the moment.

"Sit beside my bed, and talk me to sleep, please, Mrs. Barbara, dear!" entreated the little girl, clutching tightly at the old lady's skirts.

So Mrs. Barbara seated herself, knitting in hand, by the little white bed, and Jinty listened to the stories she loved best of all, those of the days when her father was a little boy and played under the great elms of Old Studley with Mike, the ancient raven, that some people declared was a hundred years old at least. He was little more than a dream-father, for he had been for most of Jinty's little life away in far-off China in the diplomatic service. Her sweet, young, gentle mother Jinty did not remember at all, for she dwelt in a land that is far-and-away farther off than China, a land:

"Where loyal hearts and true Stand ever in the light, All rapture through and through In God's most holy sight."

"And, really and truly, Mrs. Barbara, was it the very same Mike and not another raven that pecked at father's little legs same's he pecks at mine?" Jinty inquired sleepily.

"The very self-same. Thief that he is and was!" wrathfully said Mrs. Barbara, who detested the venerable raven, a bird that gave himself the airs of being one of the family of Old Studley, and stirred up more mischief than a dozen human boys even.

"Why," grumbled on the old lady, "there's poor Sally Bent, the henwife, she's driven distracted with Mike's thievish tricks. This week only he stole seven eggs, three on 'em turkey's eggs no less. He set himself on the watch, he did, and as soon as an egg was laid he nipped it up warm, and away with it! If 'twasn't for master's anger I'd strangle that evil bird, I should. Why, bless her! The little maid's asleep, she is!"

And Mrs. Barbara crept away to see after her other helpless charge, the good old professor who lived so far back in the musty-fusty past that he would never remember to feed his body, so busy was he in feasting his mind on the dead languages.

Next morning the tearing winds had departed, the stately elms were motionless at rest, and the sun beat down with a fierce radiance, upon the red brick walls of Old Studley.

Jinty Ransom leaned out of her latticed window and smiled contentedly back at the genial sun.

"Ah, thou maid, come down and count over the crocus flowers!" called up Mrs. Barbara from the green lawn below. "I fear me that thief Mike has nipped off the heads of a few dozens, out o' pure wicked mischief."

Presently Jinty was flashing like a sunbeam in and out of the old house.

"I must go round and scold Mike, then I'll come, back for breakfast, Mrs. Barbara. Grandpapa's not down yet."

[Sidenote: Mike on the War-path]

But scolding's a game two can play at. Mike charged at Jinty with a volley of angry chatter and fierce flappings of his heavy black wings. It was no good trying to get in a word about the headless crocus plants or the seven stolen eggs.

"Anybody would think that I was the thief who stole them, not you!" indignantly said Jinty. Then Mike craned suddenly forward to give the straight little legs a wicked nip, and Jinty fled with shrieks, to the proud ecstasy of the raven, who "hirpled" at her heels into the dining-room, into the learned presence of the old professor, by whom the mischievous Mike was welcomed as if he were a prince of the blood.

The raven knew, none better, that he had the freedom of the city, and at once set to work to abuse it. A sorry breakfast-table it was in less than five minutes. Here and there over the white tablecloth Mike scuttled and scrambled. His beak plunged into the cream-jug, then deep into the butter, next aimed a dab at the marmalade, and then he uttered a wrathful shriek became the bacon was too hot for his taste.

"My patience! Flesh and blood couldn't stand this!" Mrs. Barbara came in, her hands in the air.

But the professor neither saw nor heard the old housekeeper's anger.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" he was admiringly ejaculating. "Behold the amazing instinct implanted by nature. See how the feathered epicure picks and chooses his morning meal!"

"If a 'feathered pickyer' means a black thief as ever was, sir, that bird's well named!" said the housekeeper wrathfully.

At last Mike made his final choice, and, out of pure contrariness, it was the bowl of hot bread and milk prepared for Jinty's breakfast from which he flatly refused to be elbowed away.

"My pretty! Has it snatched the very cup from thy lip!" Mrs. Barbara's indignation boiled over against the bold audacious tyrant so abetted by its master—and hers. "If I'd but my will o' thee, thou thief, I'd flog thee sore!" she added.

"Quoth the raven: never more!"

solemnly edged in the professor, with a ponderous chuckle over his own aptitude which went unapplauded save by himself.

"I want my breakfast, grandpapa," whimpered Jinty.

It was all very funny indeed to witness Mike's reckless charge of destruction over the snowy tablecloth, but, when it came to his calm appropriation of her own breakfast, why, as Mrs. Barbara said, "Flesh and blood couldn't stand it."

"Have a cup of black coffee and some omelette, dearling!" said the professor, who would not have called anybody "darling" for the world. Then the reckless old gentleman proceeded to placidly sort the letters lying on the breakfast-table, comfortably unconscious that little maids "cometh up" on different fare from that of tough old veterans.

"Why, why! Here's a surprise for us all!" Pushing back his spectacles into the very roots of his white hair, the professor stared feebly round on the company, and twiddled in his fingers a sheet of thin foreign paper.

"Yes, sir?" Mrs. Barbara turned to her master eagerly alert for the news, and Jinty wondered if it were to say the dream-father was coming home at last.

But Mike, though some folk believe that ravens understand every word you say, continued to dip again and again into his stolen bread and milk with a lofty indifference. It might be an earthquake that had come to Old Studley for all he knew. What if it were? There would always be a ledge of rock somewhere about where he, Mike, could hold on in safety if the earth were topsy-turvy. Besides, he had now scooped up the last scrap of Jinty's breakfast, and it behoved him to be up and doing some mischief.

His bold black eye caught a gleam of silver, an opportunity ready to his beak. It was a quaint little Norwegian silver salt-cellar in the form of a swan. Mike, with his head on one side, considered the feasibility of removing that ancient Norse relic quietly. Then, afraid perhaps of bringing about bad luck by spilling the salt, he gave up the idea and stole softly away, unnoticed by his betters, who seemed ridiculously occupied with a thin, rustling sheet of paper.

But to this day Mrs. Barbara has never found the salt-spoon, a little silver oar, belonging to that Norse salt-cellar, and she never will, that's certain.

"Extraordinary, most extraordinary!" the professor was repeating. Then, when Mrs. Barbara felt she could bear it no longer, he went on to read out the foreign letter.

It was from his son, Jinty's father, and told how his life had been recently in grave peril. His house had been attacked by native rioters, and he would certainly have been murdered had it not been for the warning of a friendly Chinaman. Mr. Ransom escaped in the darkness, but the loyal native who had saved him, paid the cost with his own life. He was cruelly hacked to pieces for his so-called treachery. When the rioters were quelled by a British detachment, Mr. Ransom's first thought was for the family of his faithful friend. But it was too late. With the exception of one tiny girl all had been killed by the rioters. This forlorn little orphan was already on her way crossing the Pacific, for she was to be housed and educated at Old Studley with Mr. Ransom's own little daughter, and at his expense. Common gratitude could do no less.

[Sidenote: Ah Lon]

The letter went on to say that Ah Lon, the little Chinese maiden, was a well-brought-up child, her father belonging to the anti-foot-binding community which is fast making its way throughout China. She would therefore be no more trouble in the old home than a little English girl, than father's own Jinty, in fact.

"Well, of course," said the Professor meditatively, "the heavy end of the beam will come upon you, my good Barbara. There's plenty of room in the old house for this young stranger, but she will be a great charge for you."

"'Deed, sir, and it's a charge I never looked to have put upon me!" quavered the scandalised Mrs. Barbara, twisting the corner of her apron agitatedly. "A haythen Chinee under this respected roof where there's been none but Christian Ransoms for generations back!"

"There, there!" said her master soothingly. "Your motherly heart would never turn away a poor orphan from our door!"

But Mrs. Barbara sniffed herself out of the room, and it was weeks before she reconciled herself to the new and disagreeable prospect.

Indeed, when poor, shivering Ah Lon arrived at Old Studley, the good woman nearly swooned at the spectacle of a little visitor arrayed in dark blue raiment consisting of a long, square-shaped jacket and full trousers, and a bare head stuck over with well-oiled queues of black hair.

"I thought as Mr. William wrote it was a girl, sir!" she gasped faintly, with a shocked face.

But the old professor was in ecstasies. All he could think of was the fact that under his roof was a being who could converse in pure Chinese; in truth, poor bewildered Ah Lon could not speak in anything else but her native tongue. He would have carried her off to his study and monopolised her, but Mrs. Barbara's sense of propriety was fired.

"No, sir," she interposed firmly. "If that being's the girl Mr. William sent she's got to look as such in some of Miss Jinty's garments and immediately."

So Ah Lon, trembling like a leaf, was carried off to be attired like a little English child.

"But as for looking like one, that she never will!" Mrs. Barbara hopelessly regarded the strangely-wide little yellow face, the singular eyes narrow as slits, and the still more singular eyebrows.

"Oh, never mind how she looks!" Jinty put her arms round the little yellow neck and lovingly kissed the stranger, who summarily shook her off. Perhaps Ah Lon was not accustomed to kisses at home.

It was a rebuff, and Jinty got many another as the days went on. Do what she could to please and amuse the little foreigner, Ah Lon shrank from her persistently.



All Jinty's treasures, dolls and toys and keepsakes were exhibited, but Ah Lon turned away indifferently. The Chinese girl, in truth, was deadly home-sick, but she would have died rather than confess it, even to the professor, the only person who understood her speech. She detested the new, strange country, the queer, unknown food, the outlandish ways. Yet she was in many respects happier. Some of the old hardships of girl life in China were gone. Some old fears began to vanish, and her nights were no longer disturbed with horrible dreams of monsters and demons.

But of all things in and about Old Studley Ah Lon most detested Mike the raven, and Mike seemed fully to return her dislike. He pecked viciously at the spindly Chinese legs and sent Ah Lon into convulsions of terror.

"Ah well, bad as he is, Mike's British same's I am, and he do hate a foreigner!" said Mrs. Barbara appreciatively.

Time went on and Jinty began to shoot up; she was growing quite tall, and Ah Lon also grew apace. But, still, though the little foreigner could now find her way about in the language of her new country, she shut her heart against kind little Jinty's advances.

"She won't have anything to say to me!" complained Jinty, "she won't make friends, Mrs. Barbara! The only thing she will look at is my pearl locket, she likes that!"

Indeed Ah Lon seemed never tired of gazing at the pearl-rimmed locket which hung by a slender little chain round Jinty's neck, and contained the miniature of her pretty young mother so long dead. The little Chinese never tired of stroking the sweet face looking out from the rim of pearls.

"Do you say prayers to it?" she asked, in her stammering English.

"Prayers, no!" Jinty was shocked. "I only pray to our Father and to the good Jesus. Why, you wouldn't pray to a picture?"

Ah Lon was silent. So perhaps she had been praying to the sweet painted face already, who could say?

It was soon after this talk that the two little girls sat in the study one morning. Ah Lon was at the table by the side of the professor, an open atlas between them and the old gentleman in his element.

But Jinty sat apart, strangely quiet.

Ah Lon, watching out of her slits of eyes, had never seen Jinty so dull and silent. And all that summer day it was the same.

"What's amiss with my dear maid?" anxiously asked Mrs. Barbara, when bed-time came.

Then it all came out.

"I've lost my pearl-rimmed locket!" sobbed Jinty. "Ah Lon asked to look at it this morning the first thing; she always does, you know. And I took it off, and then Mike pecked my legs and Ah Lon's so hard that we both ran away screaming, and I must have dropped the locket—and it's gone!"

"Gone! That can't be! Unless—unless——" Mrs. Barbara hesitated, and Jinty knew they were thinking the same thing. "Have you told Ah Lon, deary?"

"I did this afternoon, and she cried. I never saw her cry before!"

"Ah, jes' so! You can't trust they foreigners. But I'll sift this business, I shall!" vigorously said Mrs. Barbara.

But for days the disappearance of the locket was a mystery. In Mrs. Barbara's mind there was no doubt that Ah Lon had taken the coveted picture and concealed it in safe hiding. Jinty almost thought so too, and a gloom crept over Old Studley. "I dursn't tell the master, he's that wrapped up in the wicked little yellow-faced creature. I'll step over to the parson and tell he," Mrs. Barbara decided, and arraying herself in her Sunday best, she sallied forth to the vicarage.

As she crossed the little common shouts and laughter and angry chatter fell on her ear.

A group of schoolboys, the parson's four little sons, were closing in round a dark object.

"Why, if that isn't our Mike! I never knew the bird to go outside of Old Studley before. What——"

"Oh, Mrs. Barbara, do come along here!" Reggie, the eldest of the four, turned his head and beckoned her.

[Sidenote: Mike's Mishap]

"Here's a nice go! We've run your Mike in, and see his fury, do! Our Tommy was looking for birds' eggs in the Old Studley hedge, and he saw a shine of gold and pulled out this! And Mike chased him, madly pecking his legs, out here to the common. And now he's fit to fly at me because I've got his stolen goods. Look, do!"

Reggie doubled up with yells of laughter, and Mike, in a storm of fury, shrieked himself hoarse.

But Mrs. Barbara stood dumb.

In a flash the truth had come to her.

Mike, not poor Ah Lon, was the thief. She tingled all over with remorseful shame as she crept home with the locket in her hand.

"Oh, and we thought you had stolen it, Ah Lon dear!" Jinty confessed, with wild weeping; but Ah Lon was placidly smoothing the precious little picture. It was enough for her that it had come back. "Grandpapa must know; he must be told!" went on Jinty, determined not to spare herself.

When the professor heard the whole story he was very quiet indeed. But a few days after he went up to London on a little visit, and when he returned he called Jinty into the study.

"This," he said, opening a case, "will perhaps make up to the friendless little stranger for your unjust suspicions!" He handed Jinty a pearl-edged locket with a painting of a Chinese lady's head. "Chinese faces are so similar that it may serve as a remembrance of her own mother. And this, Jinty dearling, will keep alive in your memory one of our Lord's behests!" From another case came a dainty silver bangle inside of which Jinty read, with misty eyes, the engraved words: Judge not!

But already their meaning was engraved on her heart; and—as time won Ah Lon's shy affections—she and the little Chinese stranger grew to be as true sisters under the roof of Old Studley.



[Sidenote: The artistic life sometimes leaves those who follow it largely dependent upon the stimulus and the aid which the devotion of others may supply. Rembrandt was a case in point, and the story of his sister's life is worth recalling.]

Rembrandt's Sister

A Noble Life Recalled

BY

HENRY WILLIAMS

The first glimpse we get of the noble woman who is the subject of this sketch gives us the key to her whole character. Her brother, the famous Paul Rembrandt, had come home from school in disgrace, and it is as his defender that Louise Gerretz first shows herself to the world. Her tender, sympathetic heart could find excuse for a brother who would not learn Latin because even as a child his heart was set upon becoming a painter. We know how he succeeded, but it is not always one's early desires are fulfilled so completely as they were in Paul's case.

It was in the evening of the very same day on which Louise championed her brother's cause that we find her almost heart-broken, yet bravely hiding her own grief and comforting her younger sisters and brothers in a terrible affliction, the most terrible that can overtake a family of young children. This was the sudden death of the beloved mother, who had been an invalid for some time. The father was a drunken sot, who had fallen into heavy slumber even while his dying wife was uttering her last request to him on earth; this was that he would make an artist of the young Paul, instead of a lawyer, as was his intention.

The next day, while preparations were going on for the funeral, the brutal husband sought refuge from remorse in the bottle, so that for the most part of the day he was hopelessly drunk. In this emergency Louise (who was only fifteen) took the direction of affairs into her own hands. The little ones had been crying all day for their mother, and would not be even separated from the corpse. They were inconsolable, and at last the youngest sobbed out, "Who will be our mother now?"

At this question Louise arose, and said, with deep and solemn earnestness, "I will!"

There was something in her manner which struck the children with wonder. Their tears ceased immediately. It seemed as if an angel stood beside Louise, and said, "Behold your mother!"

"Do you not wish me for your mother?" she repeated.

The little ones ran into her embrace. She folded her arms around them, and all wept together.

She had conquered the children with love, and they were no more trouble to her. They all gladly gave the promise to look up to and obey her in everything.

But a harder task was before her. Strangers were present who must soon find out that her father was intoxicated, on this day of all others, if she did not get him out of the way. She succeeded at last, after infinite pains, and that so well that no one knew the state he was in, and thus he was saved from the open disgrace that would surely have followed him had it got about.

The sad duties of the funeral over, Louise Gerretz braced herself to the task of looking after the numerous household affairs. Nor was this all she had to do, for her father carried on the business of a miller, and because of his drunken habits his daughter had the workpeople to look after, and also the shop to attend to. But she was sustained by the thought that her sainted mother was looking on her from heaven, and this helped her to bear up during the trying times that followed.

She now determined that, if it were possible, her brother Paul—who, afterwards following the usual custom amongst painters of the time, changed his name to Rembrandt—should have every opportunity afforded him of following his natural bent.

[Sidenote: "I will be a Painter!"]

But no sooner was the subject broached to M. Gerretz than his anger blazed forth, and though Louise withstood him for some time, she felt her cherished plans would receive no consideration whatever from a father who was three-parts of his time crazed with drink. Little Paul, who was present, seeing that the appeal would probably end in failure, exclaimed, with determined voice, "I will be a painter!"

A blow aimed at him was his father's reply. The blow missed its mark, but struck the sister-mother to the earth. Heedless of his own danger, Paul raised his sister's head, and bathed it tenderly until she came to herself again. Even the brutish Gerretz was somewhat shocked by what he had done, yet seizing what he thought an advantage, he cried, "Hark ye, young rascal! You mind not blows any more than my plain orders; but your sister helps you out in all your disobedience, and if you offend me I will punish her."

The brutal threat had its desired effect, and young Paul returned to those studies which were intended to make a lawyer of him.

Every spare moment, however, he spent in his favourite pursuit. His materials were of the roughest: a charred stick, a lump of chalk, and a flour sack. Not very encouraging tools, one would think, and yet the genius that was within would not be hid. He produced from memory a portrait of his mother, that had such an effect upon the father that the latter, affected to tears by the sight of his dead wife's face, dismissed the boy with his blessing, and promised him he should be a painter after all.

Great was Louise's joy; and then, like the loving, practical sister she was, she immediately set about the young artist's outfit. Nor did she pause until everything was in apple-pie order.

Surely God was strengthening and comforting His own. Just consider; here was a young girl, now only sixteen years of age, who had the management of a miller's business, was a mother and sister in one to three young children, and, one is almost tempted to say, was also a tender, loving wife to a drunken, incapable father.

The journey to Leyden, whither Paul was bound, was not without incident of a somewhat romantic kind. As the vehicle in which Louise and the future great painter sat neared Leyden, they came upon a man who lay insensible upon the road. The tender heart of the girl was touched, and she stopped and restored the man to consciousness, and then pressed further assistance upon him. The grateful recipient of her kindness, however, soon feeling strong enough, proceeded on his way alone.

The scene had not passed without a witness, though, who proved to be none other than the eminent master-painter Van Zwanenburg, who joined himself to the little party. But his brow darkened when he learned the purport of the young traveller's journey, and he spoke no more for some time, for he was a misanthrope, and, consequently, took small share in the hopes and pleasures of others. Soon after, however, as they were passing a forge, young Paul stopped and clapped his hands with delight at the sight of the ruddy light cast on the faces of the workmen.

"Canst thou sketch this scene?" asked Van Zwanenburg. Paul took a pencil, and in a few moments traced a sketch, imperfect, no doubt, but one in which the principal effects of light and shade especially were accurately produced.

"Young girl," said the painter, "you need go no further. I am Van Zwanenburg, and I admit your brother from this minute to my studio."

Further conversation ensued, and Van Zwanenburg soon learned the whole sorrowful tale, and also the courage and devotedness of this young foster-mother. He dismissed her with a blessing, misanthrope even as he was, and then carried Paul to his studio, lighter at heart for having done a kind action.

Sorrowful, and yet with a glad heart, did Louise part from little Paul, and then turn homewards. Little did she dream of the great sorrow that was there awaiting her.

[Sidenote: Lost in the Forest]

Arriving at home in the dark, she was startled to find that no one answered her repeated knocking. Accompanied by an old servant, who had been with her in the journey, she was about to seek assistance from the neighbours, when lights were seen in the adjoining forest. She hastened towards these, and was dismayed to learn that the two children left at home had strayed away and got lost in the forest. M. Gerretz was amongst the searchers, nearly frantic. The men were about to give up the search when Louise, with a prayer for strength on her lips, appealed to them to try once more. She managed to regulate the search this time, sending the men off singly in different directions, so as to cover as much ground as possible. Then with her father she set out herself.

It was morning when they returned. Gerretz, sober enough now, was bearing the insensible form of the brave girl in his arms. She recovered, but only to learn that one of the children had been brought in dead, while the other was nearly so. This sister thus brought so near to death's door was to prove a sore trial in the future to poor Louise.

A hard life lay before Louise, and it was only by God's mercy that she was enabled to keep up under the manifold trials that all too thickly strewed her path. Her father, sobered for a time by the dreadful death of his child, through his own negligence, soon fell back into his evil ways, and became more incapable than ever. The business would have gone to the dogs had it not been for his heroic daughter, who not only looked after the household, but managed the mill and shop as well. All this was done in such a quiet, unostentatious manner that no one of their friends or customers but thought that the father was the chief manager.

But Louise had other trials in store. Her sister Therese was growing up into young womanhood, and rebelled against her gentle, loving authority. The father aided Therese in the rebellion, as he thought Louise kept too tight a hold of the purse-strings. Between father and sister, poor Louise had a hard time of it; she even, at one time, was compelled to sell some valued trinkets to pay a bill that was due, because money she had put by for the purpose was squandered in drink and finery.

The father died, and then after many years we see Louise Gerretz established in the house of Van Zwanenburg the artist, the same who had taken young Paul as a pupil. Both Louise and Paul were now his adopted children; nor was he without his reward. Under the beneficent rule of the gentle Louise things went so smoothly that the artist and his pupils blessed the day when she came amongst them.

But before the advent of Louise, her brother Paul had imbibed a great share of his master's dark and gloomy nature, and, what was perhaps even worse, had already, young as he was, acquired the habit of looking at everything from a money-making standpoint.

Another great sorrow was in store for Louise, though she came from the ordeal with flying colours, and once more the grand self-sacrificing nature of the young woman shone out conspicuous amidst its surroundings of sordid self-interest. It was in this way. The nephew of Van Zwanenburg, with the approval of his uncle, wooed and eventually obtained her consent to their marriage.

On the death of the father, Therese had been taken home by an aunt, who possessed considerable means, to Brussels. The aunt was now dead, and Therese, who inherited some of her wealth, came to reside near her sister and brother. She was prepossessing and attractive, and very soon it became evident that the lover of Louise, whose name was Saturnin, had transferred his affection to the younger sister. Saturnin, to his credit, did try to overcome his passion for Therese, but only found himself becoming more hopelessly in love with her handsome face and engaging ways. Van Zwanenburg stormed, and even forbade the young man his house.

Louise herself seemed to be the only one who did not see how things were going. She was happy in her love, which, indeed, was only increased by the thought that her promised husband and her sister seemed to be on the best of terms.

But one day she received a terrible awakening from her happy dreams. She heard two voices whispering, and, almost mechanically, stopped to listen. It was Saturnin and Therese. "I will do my duty," Saturnin was saying; "I will wed Louise. I will try to hide from her that I have loved another, even though I die through it."

Great was the grief of poor Louise, though, brave girl as she was, she strove to stifle her feelings, lest she should give pain to those she loved. A little later she sought Van Zwanenburg, and begged that he would restore Saturnin to favour, and consent to his marriage with Therese. She was successful in her mission of love, though not at first.

[Sidenote: A Terrible Blow]

Hiding her almost broken heart, Louise now strove to find comfort in the thought that she had made others happy, though she had to admit it was at a terrible cost to herself.

Her unselfishness had a great effect upon the old artist, whose admiration for his adopted daughter now knew no bounds. Through her he was restored to his faith in human nature, and he asked God to forgive him for ever doubting the existence of virtue.

We cannot follow Louise Gerretz through the next twenty years. Suffice it to say that during that time Van Zwanenburg passed peacefully away, and that Paul Rembrandt, whose reputation was now well established, had married. The lonely sister tried to get on with Paul's wife, but after a few years she had sadly to seek a home of her own.

At the end of the twenty years Louise one day received the following curt letter from her miserly brother:

"SISTER,—My wife is dead, my son is travelling, I am alone.

"PAUL REMBRANDT."

The devoted sister, still intent on making others happy, started at once to her brother, and until the day of his death she never left him. A great change had come over Rembrandt. He had become more morose and bitter than ever. Success had only seemed to harden his heart, until nothing but the chinking of gold had any effect upon it. He was immensely wealthy, but a miser. As the years passed the gloom settled deeper upon his soul, until finally he shut himself up in his dark studio, and would see no one but Jews and money-brokers. At times he would not let a picture go unless it had been covered with gold, as the price of it. With all this wealth, the house of the famous painter bore a poverty-stricken look, which was copied in the person of Rembrandt himself.

Just before the end, when he felt himself seized by his death-sickness, Paul one day called his sister to his bedside, and, commanding her to raise a trapdoor in the floor of his bedroom, showed her his hoard of gold. He then begged, as his last request, that he should be buried privately, and that neither his son, nor indeed any one, should know that he died rich. Louise was to have everything, and the graceless son nothing.

[Sidenote: Louise's Refusal]

Great was his anger when his sister declared she should not keep the gold, but would take care that it passed into the hands of those who would know how to use it properly. Louise was firm, and Rembrandt was powerless to do more than toss about in his distress. But gradually, under the gentle admonitions of his sister, the artist's vision seemed to expand, and before his death he was enabled to see where and how he had made shipwreck of his happiness. Thanks to the ministrations of his sister, his end was a peaceful one, and he died blessing her for all her devotion to him.

Louise's own useful and devoted life was now near its close.

After winding up the affairs of her brother, she undertook to pay a visit to her sister, who had fallen ill. It was too much for the good old soul; she died on the journey.



[Sidenote: Hepsie's misdeed led, when she understood it, to a bold act which had very gratifying results.]

Hepsie's Christmas Visit

BY

MAUD MADDICK

"I say, little mother," said Hepsie, as she tucked her hand under Mrs. Erldon's arm, and hurried her along the snowy path from the old church door, "I say—I've been thinking what a jolly and dear old world this is, and if only the people in it were a little bit nicer, why, there wouldn't be a thing to grumble at, would there?"

Mrs. Erldon turned her rather sad, but sweet face towards her little daughter, and smiled at her.

Somehow folks often did smile at Hepsie. She was such a breezy brisk sort of child, and had a way of looking at life in general that was distinctly interesting.

"Of course, dearie," she went on, in that protecting little manner Hepsie loved to adopt when talking to her beloved mother, "you can't imagine I am thinking of people like you. If every one were half—no—a quarter as delightful as you, the world would be charming. Oh dear no, I am not flattering at all, I am just speaking the truth; but there aren't many of your kind about, as I find out more and more every day."

"My dearest of little girls," interrupted her mother, as they turned into Sunnycoombe Lane, where the snow lay crisply shining, and the trees were flecked with that dainty tracing of frozen white, "you look at me through glasses of love, and they have a knack of painting a person as fair as you wish that one to be. Supposing you give the rest of the world a little of their benefit, Hepsie mine!"

[Sidenote: An Unruly Member]

Hepsie flung back her head, and laughed lightly. "Oh, you artful little mother! That's your gentle way of telling me, what, of course, I know—that I am a horrid girl for impatience and temper, when I get vexed; but you know, mother darling, I shall never be able to manage my tongue. It was born too long, and though on this very Christmas morning I have been making ever so many good resolutions to keep the tiresome thing in order—you mark my words, little mother, if it doesn't run off in some dreadful way directly it gets the chance—and then you'll be grieved—and I shall be sorry—and some one or other will be in a rage!"

Mrs. Erldon drew in her lips. It was hard to keep from laughing at the comical look on the little girl's face, and certainly what she said was true. Some one was very often in a rage with Hepsie's tongue. It was a most outspoken and unruly member, and yet belonged to the best-hearted child in the whole of Sunnycoombe, and the favourite, too, in spite of her temper, which was so quickly over, and her repentance always so sincere and sweet.

She was looking up into Mrs. Erldon's face now with great honest blue eyes in which a faint shadow could be seen.

"I met my grandfather this morning," she said in a quick, rather nervous voice, "and I told him he was a wicked old man!"

Her mother turned so white that Hepsie thought she was going to faint, and hung on to her arm in terror and remorse.

"Don't look like that!" she burst forth desperately. "I know I ought to be shaken, and ought to be ashamed of myself—but it's no use—I'm not either one or the other, only I wish I hadn't done it now, because I've vexed you on Christmas morning!"

Mrs. Erldon walked along, looking straight ahead.



"I'd rather you did shake me," said Hepsie, in a quivering tone, "only you couldn't do such a thing, I know. You're too kind—and I'm always saying something I shouldn't. Do forgive me, mother darling! You can't think what a relief it was to me to speak like that to my grandfather, who thinks he's all the world, and something more, just because he's the Lord of the Manor and got a hateful heap of money, and it'll do him good (when he's got over his rage) to feel that there's his own little granddaughter who isn't afraid of him and tells him the truth——"

"Hepsie!"

Hepsie paused, and stared. Her gentle mother was gazing so strangely and sternly at her.

"You are speaking of my father, Hepsie," she said quietly, but in a voice new to her child, though it was still gentle and low, "and in treating him with disrespect you have hurt me deeply."

"Oh, but mother—darling, darling mother," cried the child, with tears springing to her beautiful eyes, "I wouldn't hurt you for a million wicked old grandfathers! I'd rather let him do anything he liked that was bad to me, but what I can't stand is his making you sad and unhappy, and making poor daddy go right away again to that far-away place in South Africa, which he never need have done if it hadn't been for being poor, though he must be finding money now, or he couldn't send you those lovely furs, and——"

"Oh, Hepsie, Hepsie, that little tongue, how it gallops along! Be quiet at once, and listen to me! There, dear, I can't bear to see tears in your eyes on Christmas Day, and when you and I are just the two together on this day—your father so many, many miles distant from us, and poor grandfather nursing his anger all alone in the big old house."

Her tone was full of a deep sorrow, and for once, young as she was, Hepsie understood that here was an emotion upon which she must not remark, though she muttered in her own heart:

"All through his own wicked old temper."

Mrs. Erldon took Hepsie's hand in her own as they walked towards the little home at the end of the long country lane.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Erldon Explains]

"I will not scold you, my darling," she said; "but in future never forget that God Himself commands that we shall honour our parents, and even if they grieve their children, Hepsie, that does not do away with children's duty, and a parent is a parent as long as life lasts—to be honoured and—loved! You are twelve years old, dear, and big enough now to understand how sad I am that my dear old father will not forgive me for marrying your father, and I think I had better explain things a little to you, Hepsie. There was some one—a rich cousin—whom my father had always hoped and wished that I should marry as soon as I was old enough; but when I was twenty-one, and was travelling with grandfather, you know, that is my own father—we made the acquaintance of a gentleman in South Africa—Alfred Erldon—who was of English parentage, but had lived out there all his life. Well, Hepsie, I need only say that this gentleman and I decided to marry against grandfather's desire. We were married in Johannesburg, to his great displeasure, so he refused to have anything to do with us, and returned to England, declaring he would never speak to me again.

"I never thought that he really meant such a thing, he had always loved me so dearly, and I loved him so much. I wrote again and again, but there was no answer to any of my letters. Then, my darling, you were born, and soon after, the great South African War broke out, and your dear father made me leave Johannesburg and bring you to England. Of course, I came to the old home—Sunnycoombe—but only to find I was still unforgiven, for the letter I sent to say I was in the village was not answered either, humbly as I begged my father to see me. All the same, Hepsie, I have remained here at your father's wish, for he lost money, and had to 'trek north,' as they say, to a wild part of Rhodesia, where white women could not go."

Mrs. Erldon's tears were nearly falling as she added: "Things have gone badly with him, and only once has he been able to come to England to spend a few months with us, as you remember, five years ago, but soon, now you are older, I shall go and face the life, however rough it may be. Now, no more talk, for here we are, darling, and, please God, this may be the last Christmas that we spend without daddy, in England or Africa, as it may be."

"And I won't grieve you again to-day, darling little mother," whispered Hepsie, quite sobered at the thought of mother without either her daddy or Hepsie's on Christmas Day again, and no letter from Africa by the usual mail.

[Sidenote: An Afternoon Call]

It was a glorious afternoon, and when Mrs. Erldon settled down for a rest, Hepsie asked if she might go out for a run, to which her mother at once agreed. In this quiet little peaceful spot in Somersetshire there was no reason why a girl of Hepsie's age should not run about freely, and so, warmly wrapped up, the child trotted off—but any one watching her small determined face would have seen that this was not an ordinary walk upon her part.

She left the old lane and turned towards a different part of Sunnycoombe. She approached the big Manor House through its wide gates, and along broad paths of well-trimmed trees. As she did so Hepsie breathed a little more quickly than usual, while a brilliant colour stole into her fair young cheeks.

"When one does wrong," she murmured determinedly, "there is only one thing to follow—and that is to put the wrong right, if one can. I spoke rudely to my darling little mother's own father, and though he's a terrible old man, he's got to have an apology, which is a wretched thing to have to give; and he's got to hear that his daughter never would and never did teach her little girl to be rude, no, not even to a cantankerous old grandfather, who won't speak to a lovely sweet woman like my mother."

She reached the porch, and pulled fiercely at the old-fashioned bell, then fairly jumped at the loud clanging noise that woke the silence of the quiet afternoon.

The door opened so suddenly that Hepsie was quite confused, and for the moment took the stately old butler for her grandfather himself, offered her hand, and then turned crimson.

"Good gracious me!" she said in her brisk voice. "Do you stand behind the door all day? You made me jump so that I don't know what I am saying, but—well—I must see my grandfather at once, please."

Every one in the village knew all about the child and who she was, and the man was more than surprised at seeing her dare to come there, and he also felt very nervous.

"You run away, miss," he said in a confidential whisper, "an' more's the shame I should have to say so, but, bless your heart, the master wouldn't see you, and it's more than I dare to tell him you're wanting."

"You need not trouble," Hepsie said; "if I had not made a big resolution to look after my tongue, I should say more than you would enjoy hearing—talking to a lady (who comes to visit your master on Christmas Day) like you are doing to me; not that you may not mean kindly, now I come to think of it, but meaning goes for nothing, my good man, if you do a wrong thing, and you can't tell me that you are the one to decide whom your master will see or not." She waited to take a breath, while the man rubbed his white hair in great perplexity, and feeling rather breathless himself; but Hepsie calmly walked by him, and before he could recover from the shock, he saw her disappear into the dining-room!

Hepsie never forgot that moment.

Seated at a long table was a solitary and lonely-looking figure, supporting one thin old cheek on his hand as he rested his elbow on the table and seemed to be gazing far away into space. She did not know that he was rather deaf, and had not heard her enter, and she stood and looked at him, with her heart aching in a funny sort of way, she thought, for the sake of a wicked old man.

She stared and stared, and the more she stared, the bigger a lump in her throat seemed to become. The room was so quiet and he sat so still, and something in his face brought that of her mother to her mind.

At last she walked right up to him, and, feeling if she did not get out the words quickly she never would, Hepsie stretched out her hand and said: "When I stopped you in the lane to-day, I didn't know how much mother still loved you, and I forgot all about honouring parents, however unkind they seem, or I shouldn't have told you what I did, however true it was, for I hurt mother shockingly, as any one could see, and I've promised to look after my tongue much better, and so I just rushed up here to say—what I have said—and—and—please that's all, except——"

She gulped and choked, her small quivering and scarlet face with the pitiful eyes gazing down into his—and the years rolled away in the old man's sight, and his daughter was back at his side again. What was she saying in that pleading voice, as she knelt and clasped his shaking hand?

"Except—except—I'm sorry, I am! Oh—I didn't think how sad you were, and can't you love me just a bit?"

And what were Hepsie's feelings then when the old man rose, and seizing her in his arms, cried brokenly:

"Oh, child, if only your mother had said the same—only just once in the midst of my anger—but she passed her father by, she passed him by! And never a word in all these years of my loneliness and pain! My heart is breaking, for all its pride!"

"She wrote again and again," declared Hepsie, and he started, and such a frown came then, that she was quite frightened, though she repeated, "Indeed she did, and she loves you still."

"Then," said he, "they never reached me! Some one has come between us. But never mind that now. I must go to your mother. Come," he added, "I must fetch my girl back to her home again, until her husband claims her from me."

[Sidenote: A Surprise]

But when the two reached the little house in the lane a surprise awaited them. They found Mrs. Erldon in her husband's arms. He had returned unexpectedly, having, as a successful prospector for gold, done well enough to return home at once to fetch his wife and child.

No words could describe the joy in his wife's heart when her father took their hands and asked their forgiveness for years of estrangement, and told the tale of the intercepted letters, which he might never have discovered had it not been for little Hepsie's Christmas visit of peace and goodwill.

Hepsie is learning to control that little tongue of hers now, and she has, framed in her room, a verse that mother wrote for Hepsie especially:

Take heed of the words that hastily fly, Lest sorrow should weep for them by and by, And the lips that have spoken vainly yearn, Sighing for words that can never return!



[Sidenote: A glimpse of South African travel, with some of the humours of the road.]

Our African Driver

BY

J. H. SPETTIGUE

"Here comes the wagon to be packed!" called the children, as with a creak and groan of wheels, and shouts from the Kafirs, it was brought lumbering to the door.

"The vor-chiest is ready, Lang-Jan," said Mrs. Gilbert, coming to the door. "Everything that can, had better be put in place to-night."

"Ja, Meeses," agreed Jan. "It's a long trek from this here place to the town in one day, and I will start early, while the stars are still out." Lang-Jan was our driver, so called to distinguish him from the numerous other Jans about the place.

The distinction was appropriate, for he looked very tall and slim, though it might be the contrast with his wife's massive build that gave him a false presentment. He was more proud of her bulk than of his own height, and used to jeer at his Hottentot leader for the scraggy appearance of his weaker half, possibly with the kindly intention of reducing the number, or severity, of the poor creature's beatings.

I do not believe Jan ever beat his wife, though I think she was as lazy a woman as could be found. Perhaps he got most of his rations provided from the house, and was not dependent on her for his comfort.

However, he seemed to me to have a Mark Tapley temper; the more unendurable the weather got, the cheerier he grew with his guttural and yet limpid cries to the oxen, and his brisk steps by their side.

There was one thing, however, he could not see in patience—an amateur who had borrowed his whip with the proud intention of "helping to drive" letting the end of four yards of lash draggle over the dewy karoo, thereby making it limp and reducing its power to clack in the approved fashion.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: An Early Start]

"We had better sleep in the wagon, then we shall not be disturbed so early," cried one of the children; but we older people preferred the idea of half a night's rest indoors to lying awake on the cartels in the wagon listening to the tossings and complaints of others.

We had been staying by the sea, and were now to journey homewards. Long before daylight, the noise of the oxen and clank of trek-chain told that inspanning was begun, and those of us who were to form the wagon party sprang out of bed and made a hurried toilet, while the Kafir women carried off the feather-beds and blankets, to stow in their allotted places in the wagon.

Mr. Gilbert and his wife, with the younger children, were to follow in a four-horse Cape-cart.

"Isn't it too dark to be trekking?" he called from his window.

"The roads is good down here," said Jan. "I can see enough"; and he hurried his leader, and got us under way without more ado.

* * * * *

We had the front curtain of the tent rolled up, and sat about on the boxes in silence for some time, listening to the plash of the sea upon the beach, every minute somebody giving a yawn.

"I cannot think why Lang-Jan is hurrying on so," said Constance at last, "unless he thinks it will be a very hot day again. The oxen gave out as we were coming down, and we had to outspan about five miles off."

"I was cross," said a younger sister.

"You need not tell us that. We have not forgotten," laughed another.

"Well, I thought I could hear the sea, and I had been meaning to run down and have a bathe directly we stopped. It was enough to make one cross. And then that stupid old Kafir and Jan over the outspan money, and our none of us being able to find any change. I believe Jan was glad we couldn't pay."

"Jan resents having to pay outspan money: he will wriggle out of it if he can," said Constance.

We had gone the first three or four miles with plenty of noise, clack of whip and shout at team, but this gradually subsided, and with a warning to April, the leader, to have the oxen well in the middle of the road and to keep right on, Jan sank into such silence as was possible.

Constance rose, and began to fumble for her purse.

We heard a stealthy order to April to run, and the whip sounded again about one ox and another, while we were tipped about in all directions as the team suddenly put on a tremendous spurt.

In the dim light we could see the outlines of a hut close by the road, and a Kafir sprang out of the doorway towards us shouting for his money. Jan took no notice, but whipped and shouted and trotted along as if his were the only voice upraised.

"Stop, Jan, stop!" called Constance.

But Jan was suddenly deaf. The other man was not, however, and he ran along after us, followed by a string of undressed children, shouting and gesticulating wildly.

"Jan, I insist upon stopping," called Constance. "April, stop the oxen."

In spite of all the noise Jan was making, April could not fail to hear the indignant cry of his young mistress, and presently the wagon was halted. Jan hastily popped the whip into the wagon and turned back to confront his enemy.

"What do you mean by stopping a wagon in the road like this? Outspan money? We have not outspanned and are not going to on your starved old veldt."

"Jan, Jan, you know very well we are owing him two shillings from the last time we passed," said Constance.

The stranger Kafir tried to get to the wagon, but Jan barred the passage. He changed his tactics. "Come, let's fight for it," he cried, casting his hat and scarlet head-handkerchief into the karoo out of the way.

This offer was declined without thanks. "I shan't fight. The money is mine," protested the other, encouraged by finding his demand was allowed by the ladies.

"April, leave the oxen and come here," called Constance. "Give this money to him."

[Sidenote: Jan's Principles]

This was done at last, to Jan's grief. "Ah, Mees Constance! Why didn't you let me fight him? he was only a little thieving Fingo dog! I didn't outspan in sight of his old hut, and he must have come sneaking around and seen us, and never said he would have money till it was too late."

"Well, Jan, and why should our oxen eat up the grass and drink out of the dam without our paying?" asked Constance; but Jan only muttered, "Thief! Dog!" and got away from the scene of his defeat with speed.

"That was why we were obliged to start in the middle of the night: Jan wanted to slip by here before the wagon could be recognised," said Constance. Jan had made a stand for his principles, though his mistress's perverted sense of justice had prevented his being able to carry them out. By the time we stopped for breakfast he had quite recovered his spirits; and when he found he had got his party well away from the place without another hateful demand, he seemed to have forgotten his hard fate in the early morning. When we reached the town we lost sight of Jan and his wagon for a couple of days, and took up our abode at an hotel.

* * * * *

A change had taken place in our party when we collected for the second and longer part of our journey. Mr. Gilbert had gone home with some of the younger ones the day before, while his wife had stayed in town to take the rest of us to a ball.

We were all tired as we reached the wagon, with our minds running on the purchases we had made, and lingering regretfully on some we had not.

Lang-Jan and April hurried off to fetch the oxen as soon as we appeared; and Mrs. Gilbert began to go through the stores.

"Those two Kafirs have eaten up our butter!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I saw what was left when you came, and thought it might not be quite enough. It is lucky I did, and have bought some more, or we should have had none at all. I cannot let such a thing as their taking our provisions pass without notice.—Jan," she said, when he returned, "you have taken my butter."

"Oh, Meeses!" exclaimed Jan, as if such a thing was quite out of the question, "not me. It must ha' bin April."

"No, Meeses—not me, Jan," said April.

"It was both of you, I have no doubt," said Mrs. Gilbert severely.

"Oh, Meeses, April, April!" cried Jan, shaking his head.

"No, it was Jan," protested the leader, again.

Jan burst into a roar of laughter, like a naughty child owning up. "Oh! ja, Meeses! It was me. I looked at that tin of butter and then I said to April, 'I must have some of that lovely butter, whatever comes of it,' and then between us, it's all gone."

It seemed impossible to deal with the offence gravely after that. "I shall know I must not leave any in the wagon another time," said the mistress; and we scrambled into our places to be out of the way while the work of inspanning went on.

[Sidenote: A Fiery Day]

The morning turned into a fiery day. The air shimmered blindingly above the veldt, and the white road, inches deep in dust, trailed ahead like an endless serpent. We panted and gasped under the shelter of the tent; April abandoned his post and climbed up in the back compartment of the wagon, but Jan grew more and more lively.

He tightened his waist-belt and ran by the side of his team, encouraging them by voice and example.

He wore an old soft felt hat, with a perfectly abject brim, above his scarlet handkerchief, and every quarter of a mile he would take it off and put the ostrich feather that adorned one side straight up, and attempt to pinch the limp brim into shape.

In spite of his cheerful snatches of song, and his encouraging cries, the poor beasts showed more and more signs of distress, till at last Jan turned to Mrs. Gilbert and said, "The poor oxen is just done up. We must outspan till it gets cooler."

"What, outspan in this pitiless place, with not a house, or a tree, or water to be got at!" cried one of the girls.

"There is a water-hole down there," said Jan, pointing to a dip in the ground not far off.

"Yes," said Mrs. Gilbert, "I have been down there on horseback."

The wagon was drawn off the road, and the weary oxen let loose, while we stretched ourselves on the cartels, but found the heat too great to let us recover any of our lost sleep.

After a time some of us, thinking any change must be for the better, dragged ourselves out into the glare, and went to look at the pool of water. But though a few prickly pears and mimosa bushes grew around, it was not an inviting spot to rest in, and we laboured back across the scorching ground to the wagon, our only benefit being more thankfulness for its shelter.

April had gone off to see that the oxen did not wander too far. Jan lighted a fire, made coffee for us, and broiled some meat and green mealie cobs.

We felt better after our meal, though we had not been hungry for it. Then, to my surprise, Jan settled down to enjoy his share, as close to the fire as he could. I do not know if the burning scrub made a little motion in the air, or if Jan, by roasting one half of his body, felt the other cooler by contrast.

Presently I saw, coming slowly across the veldt, a white-haired Kafir, carrying a weakly lamb in his arms. He made straight for Jan and sat down beside him.

Constance, who was looking out too, roused herself and gave a little laugh. "Caught," she said, and I knew what she meant.

At first the palaver seemed amiable enough, and we saw Jan even go the length of making a present of grilled mutton—chiefly bone, but not all.

"An attempt at bribery," murmured Constance.

In about half an hour we heard the inevitable demand. One might have thought Jan had never heard of outspan money, instead of its being a familiar and heating subject with him. When at last the claim was made clear to him, he asked the name of the Baas, and expressed the greatest surprise that any man could be so mean as to ask for money, just because poor souls had to wait by the road till it got cool, when it was too hot even for the oxen to eat anything.

The explanation that the place was such a convenient distance from town, that if nothing was charged the Baas would have nothing left for his own flocks and herds, was badly received, as was also the reminder that if it was too hot for the oxen to eat much, they would drink all the same. The two argued for an hour, Jan emphatic and expostulating, the old Kafir calm, feeling both right and law were on his side.

[Sidenote: "We shan't Pay"]

At length, Jan surprised us by announcing, "We shan't pay. Your Baas won't expect money from me anyhow, if he does from other people."

"Why not?" exclaimed the other in surprise, for Jan spoke with conviction.

"My Baas' wife is cousin to your Baas' wife, so of course we're free on his veldt."

We laughed, but the collector remarked that he would go and inquire. So he marched up to the wagon, followed closely by Lang-Jan, in fear of treachery, and asked Mrs. Gilbert if it was true, and being informed that the ladies were related, he retired at once, and Jan triumphantly accompanied him back to the fire.

I thought Jan would be happy now the wicked had ceased from troubling, but the storm had its after-roll. He now expressed indignation that two shillings had been demanded. If such an iniquitous claim was made at all, one shilling was all that should be asked for.

They harried this point till the stranger asked Jan what odds it was to him—he did not pay the money.

"Don't I pay the money?" cried Jan. "Isn't it taken out of my very hand?"

"Oh, ja! But it comes out of the Baas' pocket."

"It comes out of my very hand," reiterated Jan, springing up; and fetching his whip, he gave three tremendous clacks with it, the signal to April, that could be heard a mile away in the still air, to bring back the oxen; and the baffled enemy picked up his lamb and retired from action.

Jan was jubilant, and cheerfully agreed to Mrs. Gilbert's suggestions as to the best camping-place for the night.

But I think his triumph was demoralising for him. As evening settled down and we were getting towards our resting-place, we passed by a rare thing—a long wooden fence; and we soon saw that Jan and April were freely helping themselves to the dry wood, and stowing it at the sides of the wagon to save themselves the trouble of collecting any later.

"Jan," called his mistress, "you must not steal that wood. The man it belongs to told the Baas he lost so much that he should put somebody to watch, and have any one who was caught taken before Mr. Huntly."

"April," shouted Jan, laughing, "look out for old Huntly. The Meeses says we must stop it."

Later, when we had outspanned for the night, and they had broiled our sausages, and made the coffee with chuckling anticipation of remainders, they made such a fire as scared Mrs. Gilbert, lest they should set the dry karoo around alight.

"Here, April, we must beat it down a bit. The Meeses is feared we shall set the moon afire," laughed Jan, laying about him with a will, as the flames leaped heavenward.

The next morning he had to cross a river, and pay toll at the bridge. Why Lang-Jan never objected to that, I do not know, but he came quite meekly for the money. His mistress had not the exact sum, and Jan was some time inside the toll-house, which was also a store.

On emerging, he shouted and whipped up his oxen, and off we lumbered.

When we came to a hill, and our pace was sufficiently slackened for speech, Mrs. Gilbert called to him, "Jan, where is my change?"

"Oh, Meeses!" exclaimed Jan, quite unabashed; "I took the change in tobacco!"



[Sidenote: Many girls long for an opportunity to "do something." That was Claudia's way. And, after all, there was an opportunity. Where?]

Claudia's Place

BY

A. R. BUCKLAND

"What I feel," said Claudia Haberton, sitting up with a movement of indignation, "is the miserable lack of purpose in one's life."

"Nothing to do?" said Mary Windsor.

"To do! Yes, of a kind; common, insignificant work about which it is impossible to feel any enthusiasm."

"'The trivial round'?"

"Trivial enough. A thousand could do it as well or better than I can. I want more—to feel that I am in my place, and doing the very thing for which I am fitted."

"Sure your liver is all right?"

"There you go; just like the others. One can't express a wish to be of more use in the world without people muttering about discontent, and telling you you are out of sorts."

"Well, I had better go before I say worse." And Mary went.

Perhaps it was as well; for Claudia's aspirations were so often expressed in terms like these that she began to bore her friends. One, in a moment of exasperation, had advised her to go out as a nursery governess. "You would," she said, "have a wonderful opportunity of showing what is in you, and if you really succeed, you might make at least one mother happy." But Claudia put the idea aside with scorn.

Another said it all came of being surrounded with comfort, and that if Claudia had been poorer, she would have been troubled with no such yearnings; the actual anxieties of life would have filled the vacuum. That, too, brought a cloud over their friendship. And the problem remained unsolved.

Mr. Haberton, immersed in affairs, had little time to consider his daughter's whims. Mrs. Haberton, long an invalid, was too much occupied in battling with her own ailments, and bearing the pain which was her daily lot, to feel acute sympathy with Claudia's woes.

"My dear," she said one day, when her daughter had been more than commonly eloquent upon the want of purpose in her life, "why don't you think of some occupation?"

"But what occupation?" said Claudia. "Here I am at home, with everything around me, and no wants to supply——"

"That is something," put in Mrs. Haberton.

"Oh, yes, people always tell you that; but after all, wouldn't it be better to have life to face, and to——"

"Poor dear!" said Mrs. Haberton, stroking her daughter's cheek with a thin hand.

"Please don't, mamma," said Claudia; "you know how I dislike being petted like a child."

"My dear," said Mrs. Haberton, "I feel my pain again; do give me my medicine."

She had asked for it a quarter of an hour before, but Claudia had forgotten so trivial a matter in the statement of her own woes. Now she looked keenly at her mother to see if this request was but an attempt to create a diversion. But the drawn look was sufficient. She hastily measured out the medicine, and as hastily left the room saying, "I will send Pinsett to you at once."

Pinsett was Mrs. Haberton's maid, who was speedily upon the spot to deal with the invalid.

But Claudia had withdrawn to her own room, where she was soon deep in a pamphlet upon the social position of Woman, her true Rights in the World, and the noble opportunities for Serving Mankind outside the home.

[Sidenote: Wanted—a Career]

"Ah," said Claudia to herself, "if I could only find some occupation which would give a purpose to existence—something which would make me really useful!"

After all, was there any reason why she should not? There was Eroica Baldwin, who had become a hospital nurse, and wore the neatest possible costume with quite inimitable grace. It might be worth while asking her a few questions. It was true she had never much cared for Eroica; she was so tall and strong, so absurdly healthy, and so intolerant of one's aspirations. Still, her experience might be of use.

There was Babette Irving—a foolish name, but it was her parents' fault; they had apparently thought she would always remain an infant in arms. Her father had married again, and Babette was keeping house with another woman of talent.



Babette had taken to the pen. Her very youth at first pleaded for her with editors, and she got some work. Then more came; but never quite enough. Now she wrote stories for children and for the "young person," conducted a "Children's Column" in a weekly paper, supplied "Answers to Correspondents" upon a startling variety of absurd questions, and just contrived to live thereby.

Babette's friend had been reared in the lap of luxury until a woeful year in the City made her father a bankrupt, and sent her to earn her living as a teacher of singing. They ought to have some advice to give.

Then there was Sarah Griffin—"plain Sarah," as some of the unkind had chosen to call her at school. She was one of nine girls, and when her father died suddenly, and was found to have made but poor provision for his family, she had been thankful to find a place in a shop where an association of ladies endeavoured to get a sale for the work of "distressed gentlewomen."

She also ought to know something of the world. Perhaps, she, too, could offer some suggestion as to how the life of a poor aimless thing like Claudia Haberton might be animated by a purpose.

But they all lived in London, the very place, as Claudia felt, where women of spirit and of "views" should be. If she could but have a few hours of chat with each! And, after all, no doubt, this could be arranged. It was but a little time since Aunt Jane and Aunt Ruth had asked when she was going to cheer them with another visit. Might not their invitation give her just the opportunity she sought?

Claudia reflected. She had not in the past cared much for her aunts' household. The elderly maiden ladies were "the dearest creatures," she told herself; but they were not interesting. Aunt Jane was always engaged in knitting with red wool, any fragments of attention which could be given from that task being devoted to Molossus, the toy terrier, who almost dwelt in her lap. Aunt Ruth was equally devoted in the matter of embroidery, and in the watchful eye she kept upon the movements of Scipio, a Persian cat of lofty lineage and austere mien.

Their other interests were few, and were mainly centred upon their pensioners amongst the poor. Their friends were of their own generation. Thus in the past Claudia had not felt any eager yearning for the house in St. John's Wood, where the sisters dwelt at peace. But it was otherwise now, because Claudia had new designs upon London.

She confided to her mother her readiness to accept the recent invitation.

"Go, my dear, by all means," said the invalid; "I am sure you must want a change, especially after so many weeks of looking after me."

"Pinsett," said Claudia, salving her own conscience, "is so very careful and efficient."

"And so good," added Mrs. Haberton; "you may be sure I shall be safe in her hands."

For the moment Claudia was sensible of a little pang. Ought she to be so readily dispensed with? Were her services a quantity which could be neglected?

But, after all, this was nothing. She did not neglect her mother; that was out of the question.

[Sidenote: Up to Town]

So it was agreed that Claudia should go. Aunt Jane wrote a letter expressing her joy at the prospect, and Aunt Ruth added a postscript which was as long as the letter, confirming all that her sister had said.

So Claudia went up to town, and was received with open arms by her aunts.

* * * * *

The placid household at St. John's Wood was all the brighter for Claudia's presence; but she could not suffer herself to remain for more than a day or two in the light of an ordinary visitor.

"I came this time, you know," she early explained to Aunt Jane, "on a voyage of exploration."

"Of what, my dear?" said Aunt Jane, to whom great London was still a fearsome place, full of grievous peril.

"Of exploration, you know. I am going to look up a few old friends, and see how they live. They are working women, who——"

"But," said Aunt Jane, "do you think you ought to go amongst the poor alone?"

"Oh, they aren't poor in that sense, auntie; they are just single women, old acquaintances of mine—schoolfellows indeed—who have to work for their living. I want to see them again, and find out how they get on, whether they have found their place in life, and are happy."

Aunt Jane was not wholly satisfied; but Claudia was not in her teens, nor was she a stranger to London. So the scheme was passed, and all the more readily because Claudia explained that she did not mean to make her calls at random.

Her first voyage was to the flat in which Babette Irving and her friend lived. It was in Bloomsbury, and not in a pile of new buildings. In old-fashioned phraseology, Miss Irving and her friend would have been said to have taken "unfurnished apartments," into which they had moved their own possessions. It was a dull house in a dull side street.

Babette said that Lord Macaulay in his younger days was a familiar figure in their region, since Zachary Macaulay had lived in a house hard by. That was interesting, but did not compensate for the dinginess of the surroundings.

Babette herself looked older.

"Worry, my dear, worry," was the only explanation she offered of the fact. It seemed ample.

Her room was not decked out with all the prettiness Claudia, with a remembrance of other days, had looked for. Babette seemed to make the floor her waste-paper basket; and there was a shocking contempt for appearance in the way books and papers littered chairs and tables. Nor did Babette talk with enthusiasm of her work.

"Enjoy it?" she said, in answer to a question. "I sometimes wish I might never see pen, ink, and paper again. That is why I am overdone. But I am ashamed to say it; for I magnify my office as a working woman, and am thankful to be independent."

"But I thought literary people had such a pleasure in their gift," said Claudia.

"Very likely—those eminent persons who tell the interviewers they never write more than five hundred words a day. But I am only a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, so to speak."

"But the thought of being useful!"

"Yes, and the thought——but here is Susie."

Susie was the friend who taught singing. Claudia thought she had never seen a woman look more exhausted; but Claudia knew so little of life.

"You have had a long day, my dear," said Babette, as Susie threw herself into a chair; "it is your journey to the poles, isn't it?"

"To the poles?" said Claudia.

"Yes; this is the day she has to be at a Hampstead school from 9.30 till 12.30, and at a Balham school from 2.30 till 4. It's rather a drive to do it, since they are as far as the poles asunder."

"Still," said Claudia, "railway travelling must rest you."

"Not very much," said Susie, "when you travel third class and the trains are crowded."

"But it must be so nice to feel that you are really filling a useful position in the world."

"I don't know that I am," said Susie, rather wearily. "A good many of my pupils have no ear, and had far better be employed at something else."

"But your art!"

"I am afraid few of them think much about that, and what I have to do is to see that the parents are well enough pleased to keep their girls on at singing. I do my best for them; but one gets tired."

[Sidenote: Another Surprise]

Claudia did not reply. This seemed a sadly mercenary view of work, and a little shocked her. But then Claudia had not to earn her own living.

Claudia's inquiries of Sarah Griffin were scarcely more cheerful. Sarah was at the shop from 8.30 until 7, and was unable, therefore, to see her friend during the day. Aunt Jane and Aunt Ruth insisted that Sarah should spend the evening at St. John's Wood, and promised that she should leave early in the morning.

She came. Again Claudia marvelled at the change in her friend. Already she seemed ten years older than her age; her clothes, if neat, cried aloud of a narrow purse. She had lost a good deal of the brightness which once marked her, and had gathered instead a patient, worn look which had a pathos of its own.

Sarah did not announce her poverty, but under the sympathetic hands of Aunt Ruth and Aunt Jane she in time poured out the history of her daily life.

She was thankful to be in work, even though it was poorly paid. When first in search of occupation, she had spent three weary weeks in going from one house of business to another. In some she was treated courteously, in a few kindly, in many coarsely, in some insultingly. But that was nothing; Sarah knew of girls, far more tenderly reared than she had been, whose experiences had been even sadder.

But Claudia hoped that now Sarah really was at work she was comfortable.

Sarah smiled a little wintry smile. Yes, she was comfortable, and very thankful to be at work.

Aunt Jane with many apologies wanted more detail.

Then it appeared that Sarah was living on 15s. a week. She lived at a home for young women in business; she fed chiefly on bread and butter. Her clothes depended upon occasional gifts from friends.

Claudia began to condemn the world for its hardness.

"But I am not clever," said Sarah; "I can do nothing in particular, and there are so many of us wanting work."

"And do all these people really need it?"

"Yes; and we all think it hard when girls come and, for the mere pleasure of doing something, take such work at a lower wage than those can take who must live."

"But look at me," said Claudia; "I don't want the money, but I want the occupation; I want to feel I have some definite duties, and some place of my own in the world."

Sarah looked a little puzzled. Then she said, "Perhaps Mrs. Warwick could help you."

"Who is Mrs. Warwick?"

"Mrs. Warwick is the presiding genius of a ladies' club to which some of my friends go. I daresay one of them will be very glad to take us there."

So they agreed to go. Claudia felt, it must be owned, a little disappointed at what she had heard from her friends, but was inclined to believe that between the old life at home and the drudgery for the bare means of existence there still lay many things which she could do. She revolved the subject in the course of a morning walk on the day they were to visit the club, and returned to the shelter of her aunts' home with something of her old confidence restored.

Despite their goodness—Claudia could not question that—how poor, she thought, looked their simple ways! Aunt Jane sat, as aforetime, at one side of the fireplace, Aunt Ruth at the other. Aunt Jane was knitting with red wool, as she had always knitted since Claudia had known her. Aunt Ruth, with an equal devotion to habit, was working her way through a piece of embroidery. Molossus, the toy terrier, was asleep in Aunt Jane's lap; Scipio reposed luxuriously at Aunt Ruth's feet.

[Sidenote: Mild Excitement]

It was a peaceful scene; yet it had its mild excitements. The two aunts began at once to explain.

"We are so glad you are come in," said Aunt Jane.

"Because old Rooker has been," said Aunt Ruth.

"And with such good news! He has heard from his boy——"

"His boy, you know, who ran away," continued Aunt Ruth.

"He is coming home in a month or two, just to see his father, and is then going back again——"

"Back again to America, you know——"

"Where he is doing well——"

"And he sends his father five pounds——"

"And now the old man says he will not need our half-a-crown a week any longer——"

"So we can give it to old Mrs. Wimple, his neighbour——"

"A great sufferer, you know, and oh, so patient."

"Really!" said Claudia, a little confused by this antiphonal kind of narrative.

"Yes," continued Aunt Jane, "and I see a letter has come in for you—from home, I think. So this has been quite an eventful morning."

Claudia took the letter and went up to her own room, reflecting a little ungratefully upon the contentment which reigned below.

She opened her letter. It was, she saw, from her mother, written, apparently, at two or three sittings, for the last sheet contained a most voluminous postscript. She read the opening page of salutation, and then laid it down to prepare for luncheon. Musing as she went about her room, time slipped away, and the gong was rumbling out its call before she was quite ready to go down.

She hurried away, and the letter was left unfinished. It caught her eye in the afternoon; but again Claudia was hurried, and resolved that it could very well wait until she returned at night.

The club was amusing. Mrs. Warwick, its leading spirit, pleasantly mingled a certain motherly sympathy with an unconventional habit of manner and speech. There was an address or lecture during the evening by a middle-aged woman of great fluency, who rather astounded Claudia by the freest possible assumption, and by the most sweeping criticism of the established order of things as it affected women. The general conversation of the members seemed, however, no less frivolous, though much less restrained, than she had heard in drawing-rooms at home.

She parted from Sarah Griffin at the door of the club, and drove to St. John's Wood in a hansom. The repose of the house had not been stirred in her absence. Aunt Jane, Aunt Ruth, Molossus, and Scipio, all were in their accustomed places.

"And here is another letter for you, my dear," said Aunt Jane. "I hope the other brought good news?"

Claudia blushed a healthy, honest, old-fashioned blush. She had forgotten that letter. Its opening page or so had alone been glanced at.

Aunt Jane looked astonished at the confession, but with her placid good-nature added: "Of course, my dear, it was the little excitement of this evening."

"So natural to young heads," said Aunt Ruth, with a shake of her curls.

But Claudia was ashamed of herself, and ran upstairs for the first letter.

[Sidenote: Startling News]

A hasty glance showed her that, whilst it began in ordinary gossip, the long postscript dealt with a more serious subject. Mr. Haberton was ill; he had driven home late at night from a distance, and had taken a chill. Mrs. Haberton hoped it would pass off; Claudia was not to feel alarmed; Pinsett had again proved herself invaluable, and between them they could nurse the patient comfortably.

Claudia hastened to the second letter. Her fears were justified. Her father was worse; pneumonia had set in; the doctor was anxious; they were trying to secure a trained nurse; perhaps Claudia would like to return as soon as she got the letter.

"When did this come?" asked Claudia eagerly.

"A very few moments after you left," said Aunt Jane. "Of course, if you had been here, you might just have caught the eight o'clock train—very late, my dear, for you to go by, but with your father so ill——" And Aunt Jane wiped a tear away.

Claudia also wept.

"Can nothing be done to-night?" she presently cried. "Must I wait till to-morrow? He may be——" But she did not like to finish the sentence.

Aunt Ruth had risen to the occasion; she was already adjusting her spectacles with trembling hands in order to explore the A B C Timetable. A very brief examination of the book showed that Claudia could not get home that night. They could only wait until morning.

Claudia spent a sleepless night. She had come up to London to find a mission in life. The first great sorrow had fallen upon her home in her absence, and by an inexcusable preoccupation she had perhaps made it impossible to reach home before her father's death.

She knew that pneumonia often claimed its victims swiftly; she might reach home too late.

Her father had been good to her in his own rather stern way. He was not a small, weak, or peevish character. To have helped him in sickness would have seemed a pleasant duty even to Claudia, who had contrived to overlook her mother's frail health. And others were serving him—that weak mother; Pinsett, too; and perhaps a hired nurse. It was unbearable.

"My dear," said Aunt Jane, as Claudia wept aloud, "we are in our heavenly Father's hands; let us ask Him to keep your dear father at least until you see him."

So those two old maids with difficulty adjusted their stiff knees to kneeling, and, as Aunt Jane lifted her quavering voice in a few sentences of simple prayer, she laid a trembling hand protectingly on Claudia.

Would that night never go? Its hours to Claudia seemed weeks. The shock of an impending loss would of itself have been hard enough to bear; but to remember that by her own indifference to home she had perhaps missed seeing her father again alive—that was worse than all.