A Celebration of Women Writers

Juliana Horatia Ewing and Her Books.
By .
London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1885.


PRICE ONE SHILLING.

JULIANA HORATIA EWING
AND HER BOOKS.

BY
HORATIA K. F. GATTY.

young girl laying wreath before headstone inscribed JHE May 1885
UNTIL THE DAY BREAK,–


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SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

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signed portrait of Juliana Horatia Ewing


JULIANA HORATIA EWING
AND HER BOOKS.

BY
HORATIA K. F. GATTY.

WITH A PORTRAIT BY GEORGE REID, R.S.A.
SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SKETCHES BY J. H. EWING.
AND A COVER DESIGNED BY
RANDOLPH CALDECOTT.

sitting puppy on a leash
Our latest pet, a collie pup.


LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.;
26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W.
BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.

1885.


ALL hearts grew warmer in the presence
  Of one who, seeking not his own,
Gave freely for the love of giving,
  Nor reaped for self the harvest sown.

Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude
  Of generous deeds and kindly words:
In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers,
  Open to sunrise and the birds.

The task was thine to mould and fashion
  Life's plastic newness into grace;
To make the boyish heart heroic,
  And light with thought the maiden's face.
* * * *
O friend! if thought and sense avail not
  To know thee henceforth as thou art,
That all is well for thee forever
  I trust the instincts of my heart.

Thine be the quiet habitations,
  Thine the green pastures, blossom-sown,
And smiles of saintly recognition,
  As sweet and tender and as thy own,

Thou com'st not from the hush and shadow
  To meet us, but to thee we come;
With thee we never can be strangers,
  And where thou art must still be home.
"A Memorial. –JOHN G. WHITTIER.

PART I.

In Memoriam
JULIANA HORATIA,
SECOND DAUGHTER OF THE REV. ALFRED GATTY, D.D., AND
MARGARET, HIS WIFE,
BORN AT ECCLESFIELD, YORKSHIRE, AUGUST 3, 1841,
MARRIED JUNE 1, 1867, TO ALEXANDER EWING, MAJOR, A.P.D.,
DIED AT BATH, MAY 13, 1885,
BURIED AT TRULL, SOMERSET, MAY 16, 1885.

(illuminated capital) I HAVE promised the children to write something for them about their favourite story-teller, Juliana Horatia Ewing, because I am sure they will like to read it.

I well remember how eagerly I devoured the Life of my favourite author, Hans Christian Andersen; how anxious I was to send a subscription to the memorial statue of him, which was placed in the centre of the Public Garden at Copenhagen, where children yet play at his feet; and, still further, to send some flowers to his newly-filled grave by the hand of one who, more fortunate than myself, had the chance of visiting the spot.

I think that the point which children will be most anxious to know about Mrs. Ewing is how she wrote her stories. Did she evolve the plots and characters entirely out of her own mind, or were they in any way suggested by the occurrences and people around her?

The best plan of answering such questions will be for me to give a list of her stories in succession as they were written, and to tell, as far as I can, what gave rise to them in my sister's mind; in doing this we shall find that an outline biography of her will naturally follow. Nearly all her writings first appeared in the pages of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, and as we realise this fact we shall see how close her connexion with it was, and cease to wonder that the Magazine should end after her death.

Those who lived with my sister have no difficulty in tracing likenesses between some of the characters in her books, and many whom she met in real life; but let me say, once for all, that she never drew "portraits" of people, and even if some of us now and then caught glimpses of ourselves under the clothing she had robed us in, we only felt ashamed to think how unlike we really were to the glorified beings whom she put before the public.

Still less did she ever do with her pen, what an artistic family of children used to threaten to do with their pencils when they were vexed with each other, namely, to "draw you ugly."

It was one of the strongest features in my sister's character that she "received but what she gave," and threw such a halo of sympathy and trust round every one she came in contact with, that she seemed to see them "with larger other eyes than ours," and treated them accordingly. On the whole, I am sure this was good in its results, though the pain occasionally of awakening to disappointment was acute; but she generally contrived to cover up the wound with some new shoot of Hope. On those in whom she trusted I think her faith acted favourably. I recollect one friend whose conscience did not allow him to rest quite easily under the rosy light through which he felt he was viewed, saying to her: "It's the trust that such women as you repose in us men, which makes us desire to become more like what you believe us to be."

If her universal sympathy sometimes led her to what we might hastily consider "waste her time" on the petty interests and troubles of people who appeared to us unworthy, what were we that we should blame her? The value of each soul is equal in God's sight; and when the books are opened there may be more entries than we now can count of hearts comforted, self-respect restored, and souls raised by her help to fresh love and trust in God,–ay, even of old sins and deeds of shame turned into rungs on the ladder to heaven by feet that have learned to tread the evil beneath them. It was this well-spring of sympathy in her which made my sister rejoice as she did in the teaching of the now Chaplain-General, Dr. J. C. Edghill, when he was yet attached to the iron church in the South Camp, Aldershot. "He preaches the gospel of Hope," she said–hope that is in the latent power which lies hidden even in the worst of us, ready to take fire when touched by the Divine flame, and burn up its old evil into a light that will shine to God's glory before men. I still possess the epitome of one of these "hopeful" sermons, which she sent me in a letter after hearing the chaplain preach on the two texts: "What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God"; "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

It has been said that, in his story of "The Old Bachelor's Nightcap," Hans Andersen recorded something of his own career. I know not if this be true, but certainly in her story of "Madam Liberality" * Mrs. Ewing drew a picture of her own character that can never be surpassed. She did this quite unintentionally, I know, and believed that she was only giving her own experiences of suffering under quinsy, in combination with some record of the virtues of one whose powers of courage, uprightness, and generosity under ill-health she had always regarded with deep admiration. Possibly the virtues were hereditary,–certainly the original owner of them was a relation; but, however this may be, Madam Liberality bears a wonderfully strong likeness to my sister, and she used to be called by a great friend of ours the "little body with a mighty heart," from the quotation which appears at the head of the tale.

The same friend is now a bishop in another hemisphere from ours, but he will ever be reckoned a "great" friend. Our bonds of friendship were tied during hours of sorrow in the house of mourning, and such as these are not broken by after-divisions of space and time. Mrs. Ewing named him "Jachin," from one of the pillars of the Temple, on account of his being a pillar of strength at that time to us. Let me now quote the opening description of Madam Liberality from the story:–

It was not her real name; it was given to her by her brothers and sisters. People with very marked qualities of character do sometimes get such distinctive titles to rectify the indefiniteness of those they inherit and those they receive in baptism. The ruling peculiarity of a character is apt to show itself early in life, and it showed itself in Madam Liberality when she was a little child.

Plum-cakes were not plentiful in her home when Madam Liberality was young, and, such as there were, were of the "wholesome" kind–plenty of breadstuff, and the currants and raisins at a respectful distance from each other. But, few as the plums were, she seldom ate them. She picked them out very carefully, and put them into a box, which was hidden under her pinafore.

When we grown-up people were children, and plum-cake and plum-pudding tasted very much nicer than they do now, we also picked out the plums. Some of us ate them at once, and had then to toil slowly through the cake or pudding, and some valiantly dispatched the plainer portion of the feast at the beginning, and kept the plums to sweeten the end. Sooner or later we ate them ourselves, but Madam Liberality kept her plums for other people.

When the vulgar meal was over–that commonplace refreshment ordained and superintended by the elders of the household–Madam Liberality would withdraw into a corner, from which she issued notes of invitation to all the dolls. They were "fancy written" on curl-papers, and folded into cocked hats.

Then began the real feast. The dolls came, and the children with them. Madam Liberality had no toy tea-sets or dinner-sets, but there were acorn-cups filled to the brim, and the water tasted deliciously, though it came out of the ewer in the night-nursery, and had not even been filtered. And before every doll was a flat oyster-shell covered with a round oyster-shell, a complete set of complete pairs which had been collected by degrees, like old family plate. And, when the upper shell was raised, on every dish lay a plum. It was then that Madam Liberality got her sweetness out of the cake. She was in her glory at the head of the inverted tea-chest, and if the raisins would not go round the empty oyster-shell was hers, and nothing offended her more than to have this noticed. That was her spirit, then and always. She could "do without" anything, if the wherewithal to be hospitable was left to her.

When one's brain is no stronger than mine is, one gets very much confused in disentangling motives and nice points of character. I have doubted whether Madam Liberality's besetting virtue were a virtue at all. Was it unselfishness or love of approbation, benevolence or fussiness, the gift of sympathy or the lust of power, or was it something else? She was a very sickly child, with much pain to bear, and many pleasures to forego. Was it, as the doctors say, "an effort of nature" to make her live outside herself, and be happy in the happiness of others?

All my earliest recollections of Julie (as I must call her) picture her as at once the projector and manager of all our nursery doings. Even if she tyrannised over us by always arranging things according to her own fancy, we did not rebel, we relied so habitually and entirely on her to originate every fresh plan and idea; and I am sure that in our turn we often tyrannised over her by reproaching her when any of what we called her "projukes" ended in "mulls," or when she paused for what seemed to us a longer five minutes than usual in the middle of some story she was telling, to think what the next incident should be!

It amazes me now to realise how unreasonable we were in our impatience, and how her powers of invention ever kept pace with our demands. These early stories were influenced to some extent by the books that she then liked best to read,–Grimm, Andersen, and Bechstein's fairy tales; to the last writer I believe we owed her story about a Wizard, which was one of our chief favourites. Not that she copied Bechstein in any way, for we read his tales too, and would not have submitted to anything approaching a recapitulation; but the character of the little Wizard was one which fascinated her, and even more so, perhaps, the quaint picture of him, which stood at the head of the tale; and she wove round this skeleton idea a rambling romance from her own fertile imagination.

I have specially alluded to the picture, because my sister's artistic as well as literary powers were so strong that through all her life the two ever ran side by side, each aiding and developing the other, so that it is difficult to speak of them apart.

Many of the stories she told us in childhood were inspired by some fine woodcuts in a German "A B C book," that we could none of us then read, and in later years some of her best efforts were suggested by illustrations, and written to fit them. I know, too, that in arranging the plots and wording of her stories she followed the rules that are pursued by artists in composing their pictures. She found great difficulty in preventing herself from "overcrowding her canvas" with minor characters, owing to her tendency to throw herself into complete sympathy with whatever creature she touched; and, sometimes,–particularly in tales which came out as serials, when she wrote from month to month, and had no opportunity of correcting the composition as a whole,–she was apt to give undue prominence to minor details, and throw her high lights on to obscure corners, instead of concentrating them on the central point. These artistic rules kept her humour and pathos,–like light and shade,–duly balanced, and made the lights she "left out" some of the most striking points of her work.

But to go back to the stories she told us as children. Another of our favourite ones related to a Cavalier who hid in an underground passage connected with a deserted Windmill on a lonely moor. It is needless to say that, as we were brought up on Marryat's "Children of the New Forest," and possessed an aunt who always went into mourning for King Charles on January 30, our sympathies were entirely devoted to the Stuarts' cause; and this persecuted Cavalier, with his big hat and boots, long hair and sorrows, was our best beloved hero. We would always let Julie tell us the "Windmill Story" over again, when her imagination was at a loss for a new one. Windmills, I suppose from their picturesqueness, had a very strong attraction for her. There were none near our Yorkshire home, so, perhaps, their rarity added to their value in her eyes; certain it is that

windmill
Post Mill, Dennington.

she was never tired of sketching them, and one of her latest note-books is full of the old mill at Frimley, Hants, taken under various aspects of sunset and storm. Then Holland, with its low horizons and rows of windmills, was the first foreign land she chose to visit, and the "Dutch Story," one of her earliest written efforts, remains an unfinished fragment; whilst "Jan of the Windmill" owes much of its existence to her early love for these quaint structures.

It was not only in the matter of fairy tales that Julie reigned supreme in the nursery, she presided equally over our games and amusements. In matters such as garden-plots, when she and our eldest sister could each have one of the same size, they did so; but when it came to there being one bower, devised under the bending branches of a lilac bush, then the laws of seniority were disregarded, and it was "Julie's Bower." Here, on benches made of narrow boards laid on inverted flower-pots, we sat and listened to her stories; here was kept the discarded dinner-bell, used at the funerals of our pet animals, and which she introduced into "The Burial of the Linnet."* Near the Bower we had a chapel, dedicated to St. Christopher, and a sketch of it is still extant, which was drawn by our eldest sister, who was the chief builder and caretaker of the shrine; hence started the funeral processions, both of our pets and of the stray birds and beasts we found unburied. In "Brothers of Pity"* Julie gave her hero the same predilection for burying that we had indulged in.

She invented names for the spots that we most frequented in our walks, such as "The Mermaid's Ford," and "St. Nicholas." The latter covered a space including several fields and a clear stream, and over this locality she certainly reigned supreme, our gathering of violets and cowslips, or of hips and haws for jam, and our digging of earth-nuts were limited by her orders. I do not think she ever attempted to exercise her prerogative over the stream; I am sure that, whenever we caught sight of a dark tuft of slimy Batrachospermum in its clear depths, we plunged in to secure it for Mother, whether Julie or any other Naiad liked it or no! But "the splendor in the grass and glory in the flower" that we found in "St. Nicholas" was very deep and real, thanks to all she wove around the spot for us. Even in childhood she must have felt, and imparted to us, a great deal of what she put into the hearts of the children in "Our Field." To me this story is one of the most beautiful of her compositions, and deeply characteristic of the strong power she possessed of drawing happiness from little things, in spite of the hindrances caused by weak health. Her fountain of hope and thankfulness never ran dry.

Madam Liberality was accustomed to disappointment.

From her earliest years it had been a family joke that poor Madam Liberality was always in ill-luck's way.

It is true that she was constantly planning; and, if one builds castles, one must expect a few loose stones about one's ears now and then. But, besides this, her little hopes were constantly being frustrated by Fate.

If the pigs or the hens got into the garden, Madam Liberality's bed was sure to be laid waste before any one came to the rescue. When a picnic or tea-party was in store, if Madam Liberality did not catch cold, so as to hinder her from going, she was pretty sure to have a quinsy from fatigue or wet feet afterwards. When she had a treat, she paid for the pleasurable excitement by a headache, just as when she ate sweet things they gave her toothache.

But, if her luck was less than other people's, her courage and good spirits were more than common. She could think with pleasure about the treat when she had forgotten the headache.

One side of her face would look fairly cheerful when the other was obliterated by a flannel bag of hot camomile flowers, and the whole was redolent of every possible domestic remedy for toothache, from oil of cloves and creosote to a baked onion in the ear. No sufferings abated her energy for fresh exploits, or quenched the hope that cold, and damp, and fatigue would not hurt her "this time."

In the intervals of wringing out hot flannels for her quinsy she would amuse herself by devising a desert island expedition, on a larger and possibly a damper scale than hitherto, against the time when she should be out again.

It is a very old simile, but Madam Liberality really was like a cork rising on the top of the very wave of ill-luck that had swallowed up her hopes.

Her little white face and undaunted spirit bobbed up after each mischance or malady as ready and hopeful as ever.

Some of the indoor amusements over which Julie exercised great influence were our theatricals. Her powers of imitation were strong; indeed, my mother's story of "Joachim the Mimic" was written, when Julie was very young, rather to check this habit, which had early developed in her. She always took what may be called the "walking gentleman's" part in our plays. Miss Corner's Series came first, and then Julie was usually a Prince; but after we advanced to farces, her most successful character was that of the commercial traveller, Charley Beeswing, in "Twenty Minutes with a Tiger." "Character" parts were what she liked best to take, and in later years, when aiding in private theatricals at Aldershot Camp, the piece she most enjoyed was "Helping Hands," in which she acted Tilda, with Captain F. G. Slade, R. A., as Shockey, and Major Ewing as the blind musician.

The last time she acted was at Shoeburyness, where she was the guests of her friends Colonel and Mrs. Strangways, and when Captain Goold-Adams and his wife also took part in the entertainment. The terrible news of Colonel Strangways' and Captain Goold-Adams's deaths from the explosion at Shoebury in February, 1885, reached her whilst she was very ill, and shocked her greatly; though she often alluded to the help she got from thinking of Colonel Strangways' unselfishness, courage, and submission during his last hours, and trying to bear her own sufferings in the same spirit. She was so much pleased with the description given of his grave being lined with moss and lilac crocuses, that when her own had to be dug it was lined in a similar way.

But let us go back to her in the Nursery, and recall how, in spite of very limited pocket-money, she was always the presiding Genius over birthday and Christmas-tree gifts; and the true "Saint Nicholas" who filled the stockings that the "little ones" tied, in happy confidence, to their bed-posts. Here the description must be quoted of Madam Liberality's struggles between generosity and conscientiousness:–

It may seem strange that Madam Liberality should ever have been accused of meanness, and yet her eldest brother did once shake his head at her and say, "You're the most meanest and the generousest person I ever knew!" And Madam Liberality wept over the accusation, although her brother was then too young to form either his words or his opinions correctly.

But it was the touch of truth in it which made Madam Liberality cry. To the end of their lives Tom and she were alike, and yet different in this manner. Madam Liberality saved, and pinched, and planned, and then gave away, and Tom gave away without the pinching and the saving. This sounds much handsomer, and it was poor Tom's misfortune that he always believed it to be so; though he gave away what did not belong to him, and fell back for the supply of his own pretty numerous wants upon other people, not forgetting Madam Liberality. Painful experience convinced Madam Liberality in the end that his way was a wrong one, but she had her doubts many times in her life whether there were not something unhandsome in her own decided talent for economy. Not that economy was always pleasant to her. When people are very poor for their position in life, they can only keep out of debt by stinting on many occasions when stinting is very painful to a liberal spirit. And it requires a sterner virtue than good nature to hold fast the truth that it is nobler to be shabby and honest than to do things handsomely in debt.

But long before Tom had a bill even for bull's-eyes and Gibralter rock, Madam Liberality was pinching and plotting, and saving bits of coloured paper and ends of ribbon, with a thriftiness which seemed to justify Tom's view of her character. The object of these savings was twofold,–birthday presents and Christmas-boxes. They were the chief cares and triumphs of Madam Liberality's childhood. It was with the next birthday or approaching Christmas in view that she saved her pence instead of spending them, but she so seldom had any money that she chiefly relied on her own ingenuity. Year by year it became more difficult to make anything which would "do for a boy"; but it was easy to please Darling, and "mother's" unabated appreciation of pin-cushions, and of needle-books made out of old cards, was most satisfactory.

Equally characteristic of Julie's moral courage and unselfishness is the incident of how Madam Liberality suffered the doctor's assistant to extract the tooth fang whch had been accidentally left in her jaw, because her mother's "fixed scale of reward was sixpence for a tooth without fangs, and a shilling for one with them," and she wanted the larger sum to spend on Christmas-tree presents.

When the operation was over,

Madam Liberality staggered home, very giddy, but very happy. Moralists say a great deal about pain treading so very closely on the heels of pleasure in this life, but they are not always wise or grateful enough to speak of the pleasure which springs out of pain. And yet there is a bliss which comes just when the pain has ceased, whose rapture rivals even the high happiness of unbroken health; and there is a keen pleasure about small pleasures hardly earned, in which the full measure of those who can afford anything they want is sometimes lacking. Relief is certainly one of the most delicious sensations which poor humanity can enjoy!

If the story could be told of how Julie went alone to a London surgeon, to have an operation performed on her throat, because she did not like to give any one the trouble of being present at such an unpleasant scene, it would read very much like a chapter from Madam Liberality's biography. Happily, Julie too earned a reward in the relief which she appreciated so keenly; for, after this event, quinsies became things of the past to her, and she had them no more.

As she emerged from the nursery and began to take an interest in our village neighbours, her taste for "projects" was devoted to their interests. It was her energy that established a lending library in 1859, which still remains a flourishing institution; but all her attempts were not crowned with equal success. She often recalled, with great amusement, how, the first day on which she distributed tracts as a District Visitor, an old lady of limited ideas and crabbed disposition called in the evening to restore the tract which had been lent to her, remarking that she had brought it back and required no more as,– "My 'usband does not attend the public 'ouse, and we've no unrewly children! "

My sister had also a Class for Young Women, which was held in the vicarage because she was so often prevented by attacks of quinsy from going to the school; indeed, at this time, as the mother of some of her ex-pupils only lately remarked, "Miss Julie were always cayling."

The first stories that she published belong to this so-to-speak "parochial" phase of her life, when her interests were chiefly divided between the nursery and the village. "A Bit of Green" came out in the Monthly Packet in July, 1861; "The Blackbird's Nest" in August, 1861; "Melchior's Dream" in December, 1861; and these three tales, with two others, which had not been previously published ("Friedrich's Ballad" and "The Viscount's Friend"), were issued in a volume called "Melchior's Dream and other Tales," * in 1862. The proceeds of the

ornately carved partition with arched windows
South Screen, Ecclesfield Church.

first edition of this book gave "Madam Liberality" the opportunity of indulging in her favourite virtue. She and her eldest sister, who illustrated the stories, first devoted the "tenths" of their respective earnings for letterpress and pictures to buying some hangings for the sacrarium of Ecclesfield Church, and then Julie treated two of her sisters, who were out of health, to Whitby for change of air. Three years later, out of some other literary earnings, she took her eldest brother to Antwerp and Holland, to see the city of Rubens' pictures, and the land of canals, windmills, and fine sunsets. The expedition had to be conducted on principles which savored more of strict integrity and economy than of comfort; for they went in a small steamer from Hull to Antwerp; but Julie feasted her eyes and brain on all the fresh sights and sounds she encountered, and filled her sketch-book with pictures.

"It was at Rotterdam," wrote her brother, "that I left her with her camp-stool and water-colours for a moment in the street, to find her, on my return, with a huge crowd round her, behind and before,–a baker's man holding back a blue veil that would blow before her eyes,–and she sketching down an avenue of spectators, to whom she kept motioning with her brush to stand aside. Perfectly unconscious she was of how she looked, and I had great difficulty in getting her to pack up and move on. Every quaint Dutch boat, every queer street, every peasant in gold ornaments, was a treasure for her note-book. We were very happy!"

landscape with windmill, trees, and sunset

I doubt, indeed, whether her companion has experienced greater enjoyment during any of his later and more luxurious visits to the same spots; the first sight of a foreign country must remain a unique sensation.

It was not the intrinsic value of Julie's gifts to us that made them so precious, but the wide-hearted spirit which always prompted them. Out of a moderate income she could only afford to be generous from her constant habit of thinking first for others, and denying herself. It made little difference whether the gift was elevenpence-three-farthings' worth of modern Japanese pottery, which she seized upon as just the right shape and colour to fit some niche on one of our shelves, or a copy of the édition de luxe of "Evangeline," with Frank Dicksee's magnificent illustrations, which she ordered one day to be included in the parcel of a sister, who had been judicially laying out a small sum on the purchase of cheap editions of standard works, not daring to look into the tempting volume for fear of coveting it. When the carrier brought home the unexpectedly large parcel that night, it was difficult to say whether the receiver or the giver was the happier.

My turn came once to be taken by Julie to the sea for rest (June, 1874), and then one of the chief enjoyments lay in the unwonted luxury of being allowed to choose my own route. Freedom of choice to a weary mind is quite as refreshing as ozone to an exhausted body. Julie had none of the petty tyranny about her which often mars the generosity of otherwise liberal souls, who insist on giving what they wish rather than what the receiver wants.

woman standing with horse hitched to cart
"The lady will drive!"

I was told to take out Bradshaw's map, and go exactly where I desired, and, oh! how we did pore over the various railway lines, but at last chose Dartmouth for a destination, as being old in itself, and new to us, and really a "long way off." We were neither of us disappointed; we lived on the quay, and watched the natives living in boats on the harbor, as is their wont; and we drove about the deep Devon lanes, all nodding with foxgloves, to see the churches with finely-carved screens that abound in the neighbourhood, our driver being a more than middle-aged woman, with shoes down at heel, and a hat on her head. She was always attended by a black retriever, whom she called "Naro," and whom Julie sketched. I am afraid, as years went on, I became unscrupulous about accepting her presents, on the score that she "liked" to give them!–and I only tried to be, at any rate, a gracious receiver.

There was one person, however, whom Julie found less easy to deal with, and that was a relation, whose liberality even exceeded her own. When Greek met Greek over Christmas presents, then came the tug of war indeed! The Relation's ingenuity in contriving to give away whatever plums were given to her was quite amazing, and she generally managed to baffle the most careful restrictions which were laid upon her; but Julie conquered at last, by yielding–as often happens in this life!

"It's no use," Julie said to me, as she got out her bit of cardboard (not for a needle-book this time!)–"I must make her happy in her own way. She wants me to make her a sketch for somebody else, and I've promised to do it."

The sketch was made,–the last Julie ever drew,–but it still rests amongst the receiver's own treasures. She was so much delighted with it, she could not make up her mind to give it away, and Julie laughed many times with pleasure as she reflected on the unexpected success that had crowned her final effort.

I spoke of "Melchior's Dream," and must revert to it again, for though it was written when my sister was only nineteen, I do not think she has surpassed it in any of her later domestic tales. Some of the writing in the introduction may be rougher and less finished than she was capable of in after-years, but the originality, power, and pathos of the Dream itself are beyond doubt. In it, too, she showed the talent which gives the highest value to all her work–that of teaching deep religious lessons without disgusting her readers by any approach to cant or goody-goodyism.

During the years 1862 to 1868, we kept up a MS. magazine, and, of course, Julie was our principal contributor. Many of her poems on local events were genuinely witty, and her serial tales the backbone of the periodical. The best of these was called "The Two Abbots: a Tale of Second Sight," and in the course of it she introduced a hymn, which was afterwards set to music by Major Ewing, and published in Boosey's Royal Edition of "Sacred Songs," under the title "From Fleeting Pleasures." *

Whilst speaking of her hymns, I may mention that, on several occasions, she helped us by writing or adapting hymns to be sung by our school children at their Whitsuntide festal services, when "new hymns" had to be provided every year. Two of those that my sister wrote, in the respective years 1864 and 1866, shall be given here, as they are not published elsewhere, and I think other children besides our Ecclesfield ones may like to sing them. The first was written to the tune of Hymn 50 in the present edition of "Hymns, Ancient and Modern."

I.
Come down! come down! O Holy Ghost!
  As once of old Thou didst come down,
In fiery tongues at Pentecost,
  The Apostolic heads to crown.

Come down! though now no flame divine,
  Nor heaven-sent Dove our sight amaze;
Our Church still shows the outward sign,
  Thou truly givest inward grace.

Come down! come down! on infancy;
  The babes whom JESUS deigned to love–
God give us grace by faith to see,
  Above the font, the mystic Dove.

Come down! come down! on kneeling bands
  Of those who fain would strength receive;
And in the laying on of hands
  Bless us beyond what we believe.

Come down! not only on the Saint,
  Oh, struggle with the hard of heart,
With wilful sin and inborn taint,
  Till lust, and wrath, and pride depart.

Come down! come down, sweet Comforter!
  It was the promise of the Lord.
Come down! although we grieve Thee sore,
  Not for our merits–but His Word.

Come down! come down! not what we would
  But what we need, oh, bring with Thee.
Turn life's sore riddle to our good;
  A little while, and we shall see. Amen.

The second hymn is in the same metre as "The Pilgrims of the Night," and was written to fit the flowery tune to which the latter was originally attached.

II.
Long, long ago with vows too much forgotten,
  The cross of Christ was sealed on every brow;
Ah! slow of heart, that shun the Christian conflict,
  Rise up at last! The accepted time is now.
    Soldiers of JESUS! Blest who endure;
    Stand in the battle! the victory is sure.
Hark! hark the Saviour's voice to each is calling–
  "I bore the Cross of Death in pain for thee;
On thee the Cross of daily life is falling:
  Children! take up the Cross and follow ME."
    Soldiers of JESUS! Blest who endure, &c.

Strive as God's saints have striven in all ages;
  Press those slow steps where firmer feet have trod:
For us their lives adorn the sacred pages,
  For them a crown of glory is with God.
    Soldiers of JESUS! Blest who endure, &c:

Peace! peace! sweet voices bring an ancient story,
  (Such songs angelic melodies employ),
"Hard is the strife, but unconceived the glory:
  Short is the pain, eternal is the joy,"
    Soldiers of JESUS! Blest who endure, &c.

On! Christian souls, all base temptations spurning,
  Drown coward thoughts in Faith's triumphant hymn,
Since JESUS suffered, our salvation earning,
  Shall we not toil, that we may rest with him?
    Soldiers of JESUS! Blest who endure, &c. Amen.

My sister published very few of the things which she wrote to amuse us in our MS. "Gunpowder Plot Magazine," for they chiefly referred to local and family events; but "The Blue Bells on the Lea" * was an exception. The scene of this is a hill-side near our old home, and Mr. Andre's fantastic and graceful illustrations to the verses when they came out as a book, gave her full satisfaction and delight.

In June, 1865, she contributed a short parochial tale, "The Yew Lane Ghosts," to the Monthly Packet, which will shortly be republished; and during the same year she gave a somewhat sensational story, called "The Mystery of the Bloody Hand," to London Society. Julie found no real satisfaction in writing this kind of literature, and she soon discarded it; but her first attempt showed some promise of the prolific power of her imagination, for Mr. Shirley Brooks, who read the tale impartially, not knowing who had written it, wrote the following criticism: "If the author has leisure and inclination to make a picture instead of a sketch, the material, judiciously treated, would make a novel, and I especially see in the character and sufferings of the Quaker, previous to his crime, matter for effective psychological treatment. The contrast between the semi-insane nature and that of the hypocrite might be powerfully worked up; but these are mere suggestions from an old craftsman, who never expects younger ones to see things as veterans do."

In May, 1866, my Mother started AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE FOR CHILDREN, and she called it by this title because "Aunt Judy" was the nickname we had given to Julie whilst she was yet our nursery story-teller, and it had been previously used in the titles of two of my Mother's most popular books, "Aunt Judy's Tales," and "Aunt Judy's Letters."

After my sister grew up, and began to publish stories of her own, many mistakes occurred as to the authorship of these books. It was supposed that the Tales and Letters were really written by Julie, and the introductory portions that strung them together by my Mother. This was a complete mistake; the only bits that Julie wrote in either of the books were three brief tales, in imitation of Anderson, called "The Smut," "The Crick," and "The Brothers," which were included in "The Black Bag" in "Aunt Judy's Letters."

Julie's first contribution to AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE was "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances," * and between May, 1866, and May, 1867, the first three portions of "Ida," "Mrs. Moss," and "The Snoring Ghosts" came out. In these stories I can trace many of the influences which surrounded my sister whilst she was still the "always cayling Miss Julie," suffering from constant attacks of quinsy, and in the intervals reviving from them with the vivacity of Madam Liberality, and frequently going away to pay visits to her friends for change of air.

We had one great friend to whom Julie often went, as she lived within a mile of our home, but on a perfectly different soil to ours. Ecclesfield is built on clay, but, Grenoside, the village where our friend lived, is on sand and much higher in altitude. From it we have often looked down at Ecclesfield lying in fog, whilst at Grenoside the air was clear and the sun shining. Here my sister loved to go, and from the home where she was so welcome and tenderly cared for, she drew (though no facts ) yet much of the colouring which is seen in Mrs. Overtheway,–a solitary life lived in the fear of God; enjoyment of the delights of a garden; with tender treasuring of dainty china and household goods for the sake of those to whom such relics had once belonged. Years after our friend had followed her loved ones to their better home, and had bequeathed her egg-shell brocade to my sister, Julie had another resting-place in Grenoside, to which she was as warmly welcomed as to the old one, during days of weakness and convalescence. Here, in an atmosphere of cultivated tastes and loving appreciation, she spent many happy hours, sketching some of the villagers at their picturesque occupations of carpet-weaving and clog-making, or amusing herself in other ways. This home, too, was broken up by Death, but Mrs. Ewing looked back to it with great affection, and when, at the beginning of her last illness, whilst she still expected to recover, she was planning a visit to her Yorkshire home, she sighed to think that Grenoside was no longer open to her.

On June 1, 1867, my sister was married to Alexander Ewing, A. P. D., son of the late Alexander Ewing, M. D., of Aberdeen, and a week afterwards they sailed for Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he was to be stationed.

landscape with water and row boats, three people rest by tree on shore
View from the window of Reka Dom.

A gap now occurred in the continuation of "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances." The first contributions that Julie sent from her new home were "An Idyl of the Wood," * and "The Three Christmas Trees." In these tales the experiences of her voyage and fresh surroundings became apparent; but in June, 1868, "Mrs. Overtheway" was continued by the story of "Reka Dom."

In this Julie reverted to the scenery of another English home where she had spent a good deal of time during her girlhood. The winter of 1862-63 was passed by her at Clyst St. George, near Topsham, with the family of her kind friend, Rev. H. T. Ellacombe; and she evolved Mrs. Overtheway's "River House" out of the romance roused by the sight of quaint old houses, with quainter gardens, and strange names that seemed to show traces of foreign residents in days gone by. "Reka Dom" was actually the name of a house in Topsham, where a Russian family had once lived.

For the descriptions of Father and Mother Albatross and their island home, in the last and most beautiful tale of "Kerguelen's Land," she was indebted to her husband, a wide traveller and very acute observer of nature.

To the volume of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE for 1869 she only sent "The Land of Lost Toys," § a short but very brilliant domestic story, the wood described in it being the "Upper Shroggs," near Ecclesfield, which had been a very favourite haunt in her childhood. In October, 1869, she and Major Ewing returned to England, and from this time until May, 1877, he was stationed at Aldershot.

Whilst living in Fredericton my sister formed many close friendships.

cabin and outbuildings
No. I. Hut, X Lines, South Camp.

It was here she first met Colonel and Mrs. Strangways. In the society of Bishop Medley and his wife she had also great happiness, and with the former she and Major Ewing used to study Hebrew. The cathedral services were a never-failing source of comfort, and at these her husband frequently played the organ, especially on occasions when anthems, which he had written at the bishop's request, were sung.

To the volume of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE for 1870 she gave "Amelia and the Dwarfs," and "Christmas Crackers," * "Benjy in Beastland," and eight "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales." "Amelia" is one of her happiest combinations of real child life and genuine fairy lore. The dwarfs inspired Mr. Cruikshank to one of his best water-colour sketches: who is the happy possessor thereof I do not know, but the woodcut illustration very inadequately represents the beauty and delicacy of the picture.

Whilst speaking of the stories in this volume of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, I must stop to allude to one of the strongest features in Julie's character, namely, her love for animals. She threw over them, as over everything she touched, all the warm sympathy of her loving heart, and it always seemed to me as if this enabled her almost to get inside the minds of her pets, and know how to describe their feelings.

Another Beast Friend whom Julie had in New Brunswick was the Bear of the 22nd Regiment, and she drew a sketch of him "with one of his pet black dogs, as I saw them, 18th September, 1868, near the Officers' Quarters, Fredericton, N. B. The Bear is at breakfast, and the dog occasionally licks his nose when it comes up out of the bucket."

bear and dog resting under tree, bear eats from a bucket

The pink-nosed bull-dog in "Amelia" bears a strong likeness to a well-beloved "Hector" whom she took charge of in Fredericton whilst his master had gone on leave to be married in England.

bulldog playing cards, caption: the bulldogue's fortune

Hector, too, was "a snow-white bull-dog (who was certainly as well-bred and as amiable as any living creature in the kingdom)," with a pink nose that "became crimson with increased agitation." He was absolutely gentle with human beings, but a hopeless adept at fighting with his own kind, and many of my sister's letters and note-books were adorned with sketches of Hector as he appeared swollen about the head, and subdued in spirits, after some desperate encounter; or, with cards spread out in front of him playing, as she delighted to make him do, at "having his fortune told." But, instead of the four Queens standing for four ladies of different degrees of complexion, they represented his four favourite dishes of–1. Welsh rabbit. 2. Blueberry pudding. 3. Pork sausages. 4. Buckwheat pancakes and molasses; and "the fortune" decided which of these dainties he was to have for supper.

Shortly before the Ewings started from Fredericton they went into the barracks, whence a battalion of some regiment had departed two days before, and there discovered a large black retriever who had been left behind. It is needless to say that this deserted gentleman entirely overcame their feelings; he was at once adopted, named "Trouvé," and brought home to England, where he spent a very happy life, chiefly in the South Camp, Aldershot, his one danger there being that he was such a favourite with the soldiers, they overfed him terribly. Never did a more benevolent disposition exist; his broad forehead and kind eyes, set widely apart, did not belie him; there was a strong strain of Newfoundland in his breed, and a strong likeness to a bear in the way his feathered paws half crossed over each other in walking. Trouvé appears as "Nox" in "Benjy," and there is a glimpse of him in "The Sweep," who ended his days as a "soldier's dog" in "The Story of a Short Life." Trouvé did, in reality, end his days at Ecclesfield, where he is buried near "Rough," the broken-haired bull-terrier, who is the real hero in "Benjy." Amongst the various animal friends whom Julie had either of her own, or belonging to others, none is lovelier than the golden-haired collie "Rufus," who was at once the delight and distraction of the last year of her life at Taunton, by the tricks he taught himself of very gently extracting the pins from her hair, and letting it down at inconvenient moments; and of extracting, with equal gentleness, from the earth the labels that she had put to the various treasured flowers in her "Little Garden," and then tossing them in mid-air on the grass-plot.

A very amusing domestic story by my sister, called "The Snap Dragons" came out in the Christmas number of the Monthly Packet for 1870, and it has not yet been published separately.

"Timothy's Shoes" * appeared in AUNT JUDY'S volume for 1871. This was another story of the same type as "Amelia," and it was also illustrated by Mr. Cruikshank. I think the Marsh Julie had in her mind's eye with a "long and steep bank," is one near the canal at Aldershot, where she herself used to enjoy hunting for kingcups, bog-asphodel, sundew, and the like. The tale is a charming combination of humour and pathos, and the last clause, where "the shoes go home," is enough to bring tears to the eyes of every one who loves the patter of childish feet.

The most important work that she did this year (1871) was "A Flat-Iron for a Farthing," which ran as a serial through the volume of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE. It was very beautifully illustrated by Helen Paterson (now Mrs. Allingham), and the design where the "little ladies," in big beaver bonnets, are seated at a shop-counter buying flat-irons, was afterwards reproduced in water-colours by Mrs. Allingham, and exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-colours (1875), where it attracted Mr. Ruskin's attention. * Eventually, a fine steel engraving was done from it by Mr. Stodart. It is interesting to know that the girl friend who sat as a model for "Polly" to Mrs. Allingham is now herself a well-known artist, whose pictures are hung in the Royal Academy.

The scene of the little girls in beaver bonnets was really taken from an incident of Julie's childhood, when she and her "duplicate" (my eldest sister) being the nearest in age, size, and appearance of any of the family, used to be dressed exactly alike, and were inseparable companions: their flat-irons, I think, were bought in Matlock. Shadowy glimpses of this same "duplicate" are also to be caught in Mrs. Overtheway's "Fatima," and Madam Liberality's "Darling." When "A Flat-Iron" came out in its book form it was dedicated "To my dear Father, and to his sister, my dear Aunt Mary, in memory of their good friend and nurse, E. B., obiit 3 March, 1872, æt. 83"; the loyal devotion and high integrity of Nurse Bundle having been somewhat drawn from the "E. B." alluded to. Such characters are not common, and they grow rarer year by year. We do well to hold them in everlasting remembrance.


PART II.

THE meadows gleam with hoarfrost white,
  The day breaks on the hill,
The widgeon takes its early flight
  Beside the frozen rill.
From village steeples far away
  The sound of bells is borne,
As one by one each crimson ray
  Brings in the Christmas morn.
Peace to all! the church bells say,
For Christ was born on Christmas day,
Peace to all.
Here some will those again embrace
  They hold on earth most dear,
There some will mourn an absent face
  They lost within the year.
Yet peace to all who smile or weep
  Is rung from earth to sky;
But most to those to-day who keep
  The feast with Christ on high.
Peace to all! the church bells say,
For Christ was born on Christmas day.
Peace to all.
R. A. GATTY, 1873

D (illuminated capital for during) URING 1871 my sister published the first of her Verses for Children, "The Little Master to his Big Dog" * ; she did not put her name to it in AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, but afterwards included it in one of her shilling Verse Books. Two Series of these books, consisting of six volumes each, have now been published, and a third Series is in the press, which will be called "Poems of Child Life and Country Life"; though Julie had some difficulty in making up her mind to use the term "poem," because she did not think her irregular verses were worthy to bear the title.

She saw Mr. André's original sketches for five of the last six volumes, and liked the illustrations to "The Poet and the Brook," "Convalescence," and "The Mill Stream" best.

To the volume of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE for 1872 she gave her first "soldier" story, "The Peace Egg," and in this she began to sing those praises of military life and courtesies which she afterwards more fully showed forth in "Jackanapes," "The Story of a Short Life," and the opening chapters of "Six to Sixteen." The chief incident of the story, however, consisted in the Captain's children unconsciously bringing peace and goodwill into the family by performing the old Christmas play or Mystery of "The Peace Egg." This play we had been accustomed to see acted in Yorkshire, and to act ourselves when we were young. I recollect how proud we were on one occasion, when our disguises were so complete, that a neighbouring farmer's wife, at whose door we went to act, drove us as ignominiously away, as the Housekeeper did the children in the story. "Darkie," who "slipped in last like a black shadow," and "Pax," who jumped on to Mamma's lap, "where, sitting facing the company, he opened his black mouth and yawned, with ludicrous inappropriateness," are life-like portraits of two favourite dogs.

The tale was a very popular one, and many children wrote to ask where they could buy copies of the Play in order to act it themselves. These inquiries led Julie to compile a fresh arrangement of it, for she knew that in its original form it was rather too roughly worded to be fit for nursery use; so in AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE (January, 1884) * she published an adaptation of "The Peace Egg, a Christmas Mumming Play," together with some interesting information about the various versions of it which exist in different parts of England.

She contributed "Six to Sixteen" as a serial to the MAGAZINE in 1872, and it was illustrated by Mrs. Allingham. When it was published as a book, the dedication to Miss Eleanor Lloyd told that many of the theories on the up-bringing of girls, which the story contained, were the result of the somewhat desultory, if intellectual, home education which we had received from our Mother. This education Miss Lloyd had, to a great extent, shared during the happy visits she paid us; when she entered into our interests with the zest of a sister, and in more than one point outstripped us in following the pursuits for which Mother gave us a taste. Julie never really either went to school or had a governess, though for a brief period she was under the kind care of some ladies at Brighton, but they were relations, and she went to them more for the benefit of sea breezes than lessons. She certainly chiefly educated herself by the "thorough" way in which she pursued the various tastes she had inherited, and into which she was guided by our Mother. Then she never thought she had learned enough, but throughout her whole life was constantly improving and adding to her knowledge. She owed to Mother's teaching the first principles of drawing, and I have often seen her refer for rules on perspective to "My Childhood in Art," * a story in which these rules were fully laid down; but Mother had no eye for colour, and not much for figure drawing. Her own best works were etchings on copper of trees and landscapes, whereas Julie's artistic talent lay more in colours and human forms. The only real lessons in sketching she ever had were a few from Mr. Paul Naftel, years after she was married.

One of her favourite methods for practicing drawing was to devote herself to thoroughly studying the sketches of some one master, in order to try and unravel the special principles on which he had worked, and then to copy his drawings. She pursued this plan with some of Chinnery's curious and effective water-colour sketches, which were lent to her by friends, and she found it a very useful one. She made copies from De Wint, Turner, and others, in the same way, and certainly the labour she threw into her work enabled her to produce almost facsimiles of the originals. She was greatly interested one day by hearing a lady, who ranks as the best living English writer of her sex, say that when she was young she had practiced the art of writing, in just the same way that Julie pursued that of drawing, namely, by devoting herself to reading the works of one writer at a time, until her brain was so saturated with his style that she could vvrite exactly like him, and then passing on to an equally careful study of some other author.

The life-like details of the "cholera season," in the second chapter of "Six to Sixteen," were drawn from facts that Major Ewing told his wife of a similar season which he had passed through in China, and during which he had lost several friends; but the touching episode of Margery's birthday present, and Mr. Abercrombie's efforts to console her, were purely imaginary.

Several of the "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" which Julie wrote during this (1872) and previous years in AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE were on Scotch topics, and she owed the striking accuracy of her local colouring and dialect,

street scene with low closely built houses
Amesbury.

as well as her keen intuition of Scotch character, to visits that she paid to Major Ewing's relatives in the North, and also to reading such typical books as "Mansie Wauch, the Tailor of Dalkeith," a story which she greatly admired. She liked to study national types of character, and when she wrote "We and the World," * one of its chief features was meant to be the contrast drawn between the English, Scotch, and Irish heroes; thanks to her wide sympathy she was as keenly able to appreciate the rugged virtues of the dour Scotch race, as the more quick and graceful beauties of the Irish mind.

The Autumn Military Manoeuvers in 1872 were held near Salisbury Plain, and Major Ewing was so much fascinated by the quaint old town of Amesbury, where he was quartered, that he took my sister afterwards to visit the place. The result of this was that her "Miller's Thumb" came out as a serial in AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE during 1873. All the scenery is drawn from the neighbourhood of Amesbury, and the Wiltshire dialect she acquired by the aid of a friend, who procured copies for her of "Wiltshire Tales" and "A Glossary of Wiltshire Words and Phrases," both by J. Y. Akerman, F. S. A. She gleaned her practical knowledge of life in a windmill, and a "Miller's Thumb," from an old man who used to visit her hut in the South Camp, Aldershot, having fallen from being a Miller with a genuine Thumb to the less exalted position of hawking muffins in winter and "Sally Lunns" in summer! Mrs. Allingham illustrated the story; two of her best designs were Jan and his Nurse Boy sitting on the plain watching the crows fly, and Jan's first effort at drawing on his slate. It was published as a book in 1876, and dedicated to our eldest sister, and the title was then altered to "Jan of the Windmill, a Story of the Plains." *

Three poems of Julie's came out in the volume of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE for 1873, "The Willow Man," "Ran away to Sea," and "A Friend in the Garden"; her name was not given to the last, but it is a pleasant little rhyme about a toad. She also wrote during this year "Among the Merrows," a fantastic account of a visit she paid to the Aquarium at the Crystal Palace.

In October, 1873, our Mother died, and my sister contributed a short memoir of her § to the November number of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE. To the December number she gave "Madam Liberality."

For two years after Mother's death Julie shared the work of editing the Magazine with me, and then she gave it up, as we were not living together, and so found the plan rather inconvenient; also the task of reading MSS. and writing business letters wasted time which she could spend better on her own stories.

At the end of the year 1873 she brought out a book, "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales," * consisting of five stories, three of which–"Timothy's Shoes," "Benjy in Beastland," and "The Peace Egg,"–had already been published in AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, whilst "Old Father Christmas" had appeared in Little Folks; but the first tale of "Lob" was specially written for the volume.

The character of McAlister in this story is a Scotchman of the Scotch, and, chiefly in consequence of this fact, the book was dedicated to James Boyn McCombie, an uncle of Major Ewing, who always showed a most kind and helpful interest in my sister's literary work.

He died a few weeks before she did, much to her sorrow, but the Dedication will remain when the story comes out (as it shortly will do), in a separate form, illustrated by Mr. Caldecott. The incident which makes the tale specially appropriate to be dedicated to so true and unobtrusive a philanthropist as Mr. McCombie was, is the Highlander's burning anxiety to rescue John Broom from his vagrant career.

"Lob" contains some of Julie's brightest flashes of humour, and ends happily, but in it, as in many of her tales, "the dusky strand of death" appears, inwoven with, and thereby heightening, the joys of love and life. It is a curious fact that, though her power of describing death-bed scenes was so vivid, I believe she never saw any one die; and I will venture to say that her description of McAlister's last hours surpasses in truth and power the end of Leonard's "Short Life"; the extinction of the line of "Old Standards" in Daddy Darwin; the unseen call that led Jan's Schoolmaster away; and will even bear comparison with Jackanapes' departure through the Grave to that "other side" where "the Trumpets sounded for him."

In order to appreciate the end, it is almost necessary, perhaps, to have followed John Broom, the ne'er-do-weel lad, and McAlister, the finest man in his regiment, through the scenes which drew them together, and to read how the soldier, who might and ought to have been a "sairgent," tried to turn the boy back from pursuing the downward path along which he himself had taken too many steps; and then learn how the vagrant's grateful love and agility enabled him to awaken the sleeping sentinel at his post, and save "the old man's honour."

John Broom remained by his friend, whose painful fits of coughing, and of gasping for breath, were varied by intervals of seeming stupor. When a candle had been brought in and placed near the bed, the Highlander roused himself and asked:

"Is there a Bible on yon table? Could ye read a bit to me, laddie?"

There is little need to dwell upon the bitterness of heart with which John Broom confessed:

"I can't read big words, McAlister!"

"Did ye never go to school?" said the Scotchman.

"I didn't learn," said the poor boy; "I played."

"Aye, aye. Weel ye'll learn when ye gang hame," said the Highlander, in gentle tones.

"I'll never get home," said John Broom, passionately. "I'll never forgive myself. I'll never get over it, that I couldn't read to ye when ye wanted me, McAlister."

"Gently, gently," said the Scotchman. "Dinna daunt yoursel' ower much wi' the past, laddie. And for me–I'm not that presoomtious to think I can square up a misspent life as a man might compound wi's creditors. 'Gin He forgi'es me, He'll forgi'e; but it's not a prayer up or a chapter down that'll stan' between me and the Almighty. So dinna fret yoursel', but let me think while I may."

And so, far into the night, the Highlander lay silent, and John Broom watched by him.

It was just midnight when he partly raised himself, and cried:

"Whisht, laddie! do ye hear the pipes?"

The dying ears must have been quick, for John Broom heard nothing; but in a few minutes he heard the bagpipes from the officer's mess, where they were keeping Hogmenay. They were playing the old year out with "Auld Lang Syne," and the Highlander beat the time out with his hand, and his eyes gleamed out of his rugged face in the dim light, as cairngorms glitter in dark tartan.

There was a pause after the first verse, and he grew restless, and turning doubtfully to where John Broom sat, as if his sight were failing, he said: "Ye'll mind your promise, ye'll gang hame?" And after a while he repeated the last word "Hame!"

But as he spoke there spread over his face a smile so tender and so full of happiness, that John Broom held his breath as he watched him.

As the light of sunrise creeps over the face of some rugged rock, it crept from chin to brow, and the pale blue eyes shone tranquil, like water that reflects heaven.

And when it had passed it left them still open, but gems that had lost their ray.

Death-beds are not the only things which Julie had the power of picturing out of her inner consciousness apart from actual experience. She was much amused by the pertinacity with which unknown correspondents occasionally inquired after her "little ones," unable to give her the credit of describing and understanding children unless she possessed some of her own. There is a graceful touch at the end of "Lob," which seems to me one of the most delicate evidences of her universal sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men,–and women! It is similar in character to the passage I alluded to in "Timothy's Shoes," where they clatter away for the last time, into silence.

Even after the sobering influences of middle age had touched him, and a wife and children bound him with the quiet ties of home, he had (at long intervals) his "restless times" when his good "missis" would bring out a little store laid by in one of the children's socks, and would bid him "Be off, and get a breath of the sea air," but on condition that the sock went with him as his purse. John Broom always looked ashamed to go, but he came back the better, and his wife was quite easy in his absence with that confidence in her knowledge of "the master," which is so mysterious to the unmarried.

* * * * * *

"The sock'll bring him home," said Mrs. Broom, and home he came, and never could say what he had been doing.

In 1874 Julie wrote "A Great Emergency" * as a serial for the MAGAZINE and took great pains to corroborate the accuracy of her descriptions of barge life for it. I remember our inspecting a barge on the canal at Aldershot, with a friend who understood all its details, and we arranged to go on an expedition in it to gain further experience, but were somehow prevented. The allusions to Dartmouth arose from our visit there, of which I have already spoken, and which took place whilst she was writing the tale; and her knowledge of the intricacies of the Great Eastern Railway between Fenchurch Street Station and North Woolwich came from the experience she gained when we went on expeditions to Victoria Docks, where one of our brothers was doing parochial work under Canon Boyd.

During 1874 five of her "Verses for Children" came out in the MAGAZINE, two of which, "Our Garden," and "Three Little Nest-Birds," were written to fit old German woodcuts. These two, and "The Doll's Wash," § and "The Blue Bells on the Lea," have since been republished by the S. P. C. K. "The Doll's Lullaby" has not yet reappeared. She wrote an article on "May-Day, Old Style and New Style," in 1874, and also contributed fifty-two brief "Tales of the Khoja," which she adapted from the Turkish by the aid of a literal translation of them given in Barker's "Reading-Book of the Turkish Language," and by the help of Major Ewing, who possessed some knowledge of the Turkish language and customs, and assisted her in polishing the stories. They are thoroughly Eastern in character, and full of dry wit.

I must here digress to speak of some other work that my sister did during the time she lived in Aldershot. Both she and Major Ewing took great interest in the amateur concerts and private musical performances that took place in the camp, and the V. C. in "The Story of a Short Life," with a fine tenor voice, and a "fastidious choice in the words of the songs he sang," is a shadow of these past days. The want that many composers felt of good words for setting to music, led Julie to try to write some, and eventually, in 1874, a book of "Songs for Music, by Four Friends," * was published; the contents were written by my sister and two of her brothers, and the Rev. G. J. Chester. This book became a standing joke amongst them, because one of the reviewers said it contained "songs by four writers, one of whom was a poet," and he did not specify the one by name. Whatever his opinion may have been, there are two "poems" of my sister's in the volume which deserve to be noticed here; they are very different in type, one of them was written to suit a sweet singer with a tenor voice, and the other a powerful and effective baritone. The former was gracefully set to music by my brother Alfred Scott Gatty, and spoiled by his publisher, who insisted on "adapting" it to his own ideas of the public taste. The latter was set too well by Mr. J. F. Duggan to have any chance of becoming "popular," if the publisher's gauge of taste was a true one.

  HOW MANY YEARS AGO?

How many years ago, love,
Since you came courting me?
Through oak-tree wood and o'er the lea,
With rosy cheeks and waistcoat gay,
And mostly not a word to say,–
How many years ago, love,
How many years ago?


How many years ago, love,
Since you to Father spoke?
Between your lips a sprig of oak:
You were not one with much to say,
But Mother spoke for you that day,–
How many years ago, love,
How many years ago?

So many years ago, love,
That soon our time must come
To leave our girl without a home;–
She's like her Mother, love, you've said;
At her age I had long been wed,–
How many years ago, love,
How many years ago?

For love of long ago, love,
If John has ought to say,
When he comes up to us to-day
(A likely lad, though short of tongue),
Remember, husband, we were young,–
How many years ago, love,
How many years ago?

THE ELLEREE. *
  A SONG OF SECOND SIGHT.

Elleree! O Elleree!
Seeing what none else may see,
Dost thou see the man in grey?
Dost thou hear the night hounds bay?
  Elleree! O Elleree!
Seventh son of seventh son,
All thy thread of life is spun,
Thy little race is nearly run,
  And death awaits for thee!

Elleree! O Elleree!
Coronach shall wail for thee;
Get thee shrived and get thee blest,
Get thee ready for thy rest,
  Elleree! O Elleree!


That thou owest quickly give,
What thou ownest thou must leave,
And those thou lovest best shall grieve,
  But all in vain for thee!

"Bodach Glas!" * the chieftain said,
"All my debts but one are paid,
All I love have long been dead,
All my hopes on Heaven are stay'd,
  Death to me can bring no dole";
Thus the Elleree replied;–
But with the ebbing of the tide
As sinks the setting sun he died;–
  May Christ receive his soul!

During 1875 Julie was again aided by her husband in the work that she did for AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE. "Cousin Peregrine's three Wonder Stories"–1, "The Chinese Jugglers and the Englishman's Hand"; 2, "The Waves of the Great South Sea"; and 3, "Jack of Pera"–were a combination of his facts and her wording. She added only one more to her Old-fashioned Fairy Tales, "Good Luck is Better than Gold," but it is one of her most finished bits of art, and she placed it first, when the tales came out in a volume. The Preface to this book is well worth the study of those who are interested in the composition of Fairy literature. Julie began by explaining that though the title of the book might lead people to think it consisted of "old fairy tales told afresh," yet they were all new, "except for the use of common 'properties' of Fairy Drama, . . . and were written in conformity to certain theories respecting stories of this kind."

First, that there are ideas and types, occurring in the myths of all countries, which are common properties, to use which does not lay the teller of fairy tales open to the charge of plagiarism. Such as the idea of the weak outwitting the strong; the failure of man to choose wisely when he may have his wish; or the desire of sprites to exchange their careless and unfettered existence for the pains and penalties of humanity, if they may thereby share in the hopes of the human soul.

Secondly, that in these household stories (the models for which were originally oral tradition), the thing to be most avoided is a discursive or descriptive style of writing. Brevity and epigram must ever be the soul of their wit, and they should be written as tales that are told.

After this Julie touched on some of the reasons for which grown-up readers occasionally object to tales of the imagination as food for young minds, and very ably proved that "fairy tales have positive uses in education, which no cramming of facts and no merely domestic fiction can serve"; but her defense is too long to be quoted here.

She also wrote (in 1875) an article on "Little Woods" and a domestic story called "A very Ill-tempered Family." *

This is most powerfully written, and has been ardently admired by many people who found help from the lessons it taught; for my own part, I prefer the tales in which Julie left her lessons to be inferred, rather than those where she laid them down in anything approaching to a didactic fashion. I think, too, that the very vividness of the children she drew made me feel about them what is said of the little girl in the nursery rhyme, that "when she was nice she was very, very nice, but when she was nasty she was horrid." Julie's "horrid" children give me real pain to read about, and I know I shrink for this reason from "A Sweet Little Dear," in spite of the caustic fun of the verses, and also from Selina in "A Bad Habit" ; but this, of course, is a matter of personal taste only.

The incident of Isobel's reciting the Te Deum is a touching one, because the habit of repeating it by heart, especially in bed at night, was one which Julie herself had practiced from the days of childhood, when, I believe, it was used to drive away the terrors of darkness. The last day on which she expressed any expectation of recovering from her final illness was one on which she said, "I think I must be getting better, for I've repeated the Te Deum all through, and since I've been ill I've only been able to say a few sentences at once." This was certainly the last time that she recited the great Hymn of Praise before she joined the throng of those who sing it day and night before the throne of God. The German print of the Crucifixion, on which Isobel saw the light of the setting sun fall, is one which has hung over my sister's drawing-room fireplace in every home of wood or stone which she has had for many years past.

The Child Verse, "A Hero to his Hobby-horse," * came out in the MAGAZINE volume for 1875, and, like many of the other verses, it was written to fit a picture.

One of the happiest inspirations from pictures, however appeared in the following volume (1876), the story of "Toots and Boots," but though the picture of the ideal Toots was cast like a shadow before him, the actual Toots, name and all complete, had a real existence, and his word-portrait was taken from life. He belonged to the mess of the Royal Engineers in the South Camp, Aldershot, and was as dignified as if he held the office of President. I shall never forget one occasion on which he was invited to luncheon at Mrs. Ewing's hut, that I might have the pleasure of making his acquaintance; he had to be unwillingly carried across the Lines in the arms of an obliging subaltern, but directly he arrived, without waiting for the first course even, he struggled out of the officer's embrace and galloped back to his own mess-table, tail erect and thick with rage at the indignity he had undergone.

"Father Hedgehog and his Friends," in this same volume (1876), was also written to some excellent German woodcuts; and it, too, is a wonderfully brilliant sketch of animal life; perhaps the human beings in the tale are scarcely done justice to. We feel as if Sybil and Basil, and the Gipsy Mother and Christian had scarcely room to breathe in the few pages that they are crowded into; there is certainly too much "subject" here for the size of the canvas!–but Father Hedgehog takes up little space, and every syllable about him is as keenly pointed as the spines on his back. The method by which he silenced awkward questions from any of his family is truly delightful:

"Will the donkey be cooked when he is fat?" asked my mother.

"I smell valerian," said my father, on which she put out her nose, and he ran at it with his prickles. He always did this when he was annoyed with any of his family; and though we knew what was coming, we are all so fond of valerian, we could never resist the temptation to sniff, just on the chance of there being some about.

Then, the following season, we find the Hedgehog Son grown into a parent, and, with the "little hoard of maxims" he had inherited, checking the too-inquiring minds of his offspring:

"What is a louis d'or?" cried three of my children; and "what is brandy?" asked the other four.

"I smell valerian," said I; on which they poked out their seven noses, and I ran at them with my spines, for a father who is not an Encyclopædia on all fours must adopt some method of checking the inquisitiveness of the young.

One more quotation must be made from the end of the story, where Father Hedgehog gives a list of the fates that befell his children:

Number one came to a sad end. What on the face of the wood made him think of pheasants' eggs I cannot conceive. I'm sure I never said anything about them! It was whilst he was scrambling along the edge of the covert, that he met the Fox, and very properly rolled himself into a ball. The Fox's nose was as long as his own, and he rolled my poor son over and over with it, till he rolled him into the stream. The young urchins swim like fishes, but just as he was scrambling to shore, the Fox caught him by the waistcoat and killed him. I do hate slyness!

It seems scarcely conceivable that any one can sympathise sufficiently with a hedgehog as to place himself in the latter's position, and share its paternal anxieties,– but I think Julie was able to do so, or, at any rate, her translations of the hedgepig's whines were so ben trovati, they may well stand until some better interpreter of the languages of the brute creation rises up amongst us. As another instance of her breadth of sympathy with beasts, let us turn to "A Week Spent in a Glass Pond" * (which also came out in AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE for 1876), and quote her summary of the Great Water-beetle's views on life:

After living as I can, in all three–water, dry land, and air,–I certainly prefer to be under water. Any one whose appetite is as keen, and whose hind-legs are as powerful as mine, will understand the delights of hunting, and being hunted, in a pond; where the light comes down in fitful rays and reflections through the water, and gleams among the hanging roots of the frog-bit, and the fading leaves of the water-starwort, through the maze of which, in and out, hither and thither, you pursue and are pursued, in cool and skilful chase, by a mixed company of your neighbours, who dart, and shoot, and dive, and come and go, and any one of whom, at any moment, may either eat you or be eaten by you. And if you want peace and quiet, where can one bury oneself so safely and completely as in the mud? A state of existence, without mud at the bottom, must be a life without repose!

I must here venture to remark that the chief and lasting value of whatever both my Sister and my Mother wrote about animals, or any other objects in Nature, lies in the fact that they invariably took the utmost pains to verify whatever statements they made relating to those objects. Spiritual Laws can only be drawn from the Natural World when they are based on Truth.

Julie spared no trouble in trying to ascertain whether hedgehogs do or do not eat pheasants' eggs; she consulted The Field, and books on sport, and her sporting friends, and when she found it was a disputed point, she determined to give the Hedgepig the benefit of the doubt. Then the taste for valerian, and the fox's method of capture, were drawn from facts, and the gruesome details as to who ate who in the Glass Pond were equally well founded!

This (1876) volume of the MAGAZINE is rich in contributions from Julie, the reason being that she was stronger in health whilst she lived at Aldershot than during any other period of her life. The sweet dry air of "the Highwayman's Heath"–bared though it was of heather!–suited her so well, she could sleep with her hut windows open, and go out into her garden at any hour of the evening without fear of harm. She liked to stroll out and listen to "Retreat" being sounded at sundown, especially when it was the turn of some regiment with pipes to perform the duty; they sounded so shrill and weird, coming from the distant hill through the growing darkness.

sitting puppy on a leash
Our latest Pet–a refugee Pup, whom we have saved from the common hangman.

We held a curious function one hot July evening during Retreat, when, the fates being propitious, it was the turn of the 42nd Highlanders to play. My sister had taken compassion on a stray collie puppy a few weeks before, and adopted him; he was very soft-coated and fascinating in his ways, despite his gawky legs, and promised to grow into a credit to his race. But it seemed he was too finely bred to survive the ravages of distemper, for, though he was tenderly nursed, he died. A wreath of flowers was hung round his neck, and, as he lay on his bier, Julie made a sketch of him, with the inscription, "The little Collie, Eheu! Taken in, June 14. In spite of care, died July 1. Speravimus meliora." Major Ewing, wearing a broad Scotch bonnet, dug a grave in the garden, and, as we had no "dinner bell" to muffle, we waited till the pipers broke forth at sundown with an appropriate air, and then lowered the little Scotch dog into his resting-place.

During her residence at Aldershot Julie wrote three of her longest books–"A Flat-Iron for a Farthing," "Six to Sixteen," and "Jan of the Windmill,"–besides all the shorter tales and verses that she contributed to the MAGAZINE between 1870 and 1877. The two short tales which seem to me her very best came out in 1876, namely "Our Field" * (about which I have already spoken) and "The Blind Man and the Talking Dog." Both the stories were written to fit some old German woodcuts, but they are perfectly different in style; "Our Field" is told in the language and from the fresh heart of a child; whilst "The Blind Man" is such a picture of life from cradle to grave–aye, and stretching forward into the world beyond,–as could only have come forth from the experiences of Age. But though this be so, the lesson shown of how the Boy's story foreshadows the Man's history, is one which cannot be learned too early.

Julie never pictured a dearer dog than the Peronet whom she originated from the fat stumpy-tailed puppy who is seen playing with the children in the woodcut to "Our Field."

People sometimes asked us what kind of a dog he was, but we never knew, except that he was the nicest possible kind. . . . Peronet was as fond of the Field as we were. What he liked were the little birds. At least, I don't know that he liked them, but they were what he chiefly attended to. I think he knew that it was our field, and thought he was the watch-dog of it; and whenever a bird settled down anywhere, he barked at it, and then it flew away, and he ran barking after it till he lost it; by that time another had settled down, and then Peronet flew at him, all up and down the hedge. He never caught a bird, and never would let one sit down, if he could see it.

Then what a vista is opened by the light that is "left out" in the concluding words:–

I know that Our Field does not exactly belong to us. I wonder whom it does belong to? Richard says he believes it belongs to the gentleman who lives at the big red house among the trees. But he must be wrong; for we see that gentleman at church every Sunday, but we never saw him in Our Field.

And I don't believe anybody could have such a field of their very own, and never come to see it, from one end of summer to the other.

It is almost impossible to quote portions of the "Blind Man" without marring the whole. The story is so condensed–only four pages in length; it is one of the most striking examples of my sister's favourite rule in composition (to which further allusion shall be made hereafter)–"never use two words where one will do." But from these four brief pages we learn as much as if four volumes had been filled with descriptions of the characters of the Mayor's son and Aldegunda,–from her birthday, on which the boy grumbled because "she toddles as badly as she did yesterday, though she's a year older," and "Aldegunda sobbed till she burst the strings of her hat, and the boy had to tie them afresh,"–to the day of their wedding, when the Bridegroom thinks he can take possession of the Blind Man's Talking Dog, because the latter had promised to leave his master and live with the hero, if ever he could claim to be perfectly happy–happier than him whom he regarded as "a poor wretched old beggar in want of everything."

As they rode together in search of the Dog:

Aldegunda thought to herself–"We are so happy, and have so much, that I do not like to take the Blind Man's dog from him"; but she did not dare to say so. One–if not two–must bear and forbear to be happy, even on one's wedding-day.

And, when they reached their journey's end, Lazarus was no longer "the wretched one . . . miserable, poor, and blind," but was numbered amongst the blessed Dead, and the Dog was by his grave:

"Come and live with me, now your old master is gone," said the young man, stooping over the dog. But he made no reply.

"I think he is dead, sir," said the gravedigger.

"I don't believe it," said the young man, fretfully. "He was an Enchanted Dog, and he promised I should have him when I could say what I am ready to say now. He should have kept his promise."

But Aldegunda had taken the dog's cold head into her arms, and her tears fell fast over it.

"You forget," she said; "he only promised to come to you when you were happy, if his old master was not happier still; and perhaps–"

"I remember that you always disagree with me," said the young man, impatiently. "You always did so. Tears on our wedding-day, too! I suppose the truth is, that no one is happy."

Aldegunda made no answer, for it is not from those one loves that he will willingly learn that with a selfish and imperious temper happiness never dwells.

"The Blind Man" was inserted in the MAGAZINE as an "Old-fashioned Fairy Tale," and Julie wrote another this year (1876) under the same heading, which was called "I Won't." *

She also wrote a delightfully funny Legend, "The Kyrkegrim turned Preacher," about a Norwegian Brownie, or Niss, whose duty was "to keep the church clean, and to scatter the marsh marigolds on the floor before service," but like other church-sweepers his soul was troubled by seeing the congregation neglect to listen to the preacher, and fall asleep during his sermons. Then the Kyrkegrim, feeling sure that he could make more impression on their hardened hearts than the priest did, ascended from the floor to the pulpit, and tried to set the world to rights; but eventually he was glad to return to his broom, and leave "heavier responsibilities in higher hands."

She contributed "Hints for Private Theatricals. In Letters from Burnt Cork to Rouge Pot," which were probably suggested by the private theatricals in which she was helping at Aldershot; and she wrote four of her best Verses for Children: "Big Smith," "House-building and Repairs," "An Only Child's Tea-Party," § and "Papa Poodle."

"The Adventures of an Elf" is a poem to some clever silhouette pictures of Fedor Flinzer's, which she freely adapted from the German. "The Snarling Princess" is a fairy tale also adapted from the German; but neither of these contributions was so well worth the trouble of translation as a fine dialogue from the French of Jean Macé called "War and the Dead", which Julie gave to the number of AUNT JUDY for October, 1866. "The Princes of Vegetation" (April, 1876) is an article on Palm-trees, to which family Linnæus had given this noble title.

The last contribution, in 1876, which remains to be mentioned is "Dandelion Clocks," a short tale; but it will need rather a long introduction, as it opens out into a fresh trait of my sister's character, namely, her love for flowers.

It need scarcely be said that she wrote as accurately about them as about everything else; and, in addition to this, she enveloped them in such an atmosphere of sentiment as served to give life and individuality to their inanimate forms. The habit of weaving stories round them began in girlhood, when she was devoted to reading Mr. J. G. Wood's graceful translation of Alphonse Karr's "Voyage autour de mon Jardin." The book was given to her in 1856, by her father, and it exercised a strong influence upon her mind. What else made the ungraceful Buddlæa lovely in her eyes? I confess that when she pointed out the shrub to me for the first time, in Mr. Ellacombe's garden, it looked so like the "Plum-pudding tree" in the "Willow pattern" and fell so far short of my expectation of the plant over which the two florists had squabbled, that I almost wished that I had not seen it! Still I did not share their discomfiture so fully as to think "it no longer good for anything but firewood!"

Karr's fifty-eighth "Letter" nearly sufficed to enclose a declaration of love in every bunch of "yellow roses" which Julie tied together; and to plant an "Incognito" for discovery in every bed of tulips she looked at; whilst her favourite Letter XL., on the result produced by inhaling the odour of bean flowers, embodies the spirit of the ideal existence which she passed, as she walked through the fields of our work-a-day world:

The beans were in full blossom. But a truce to this cold-hearted pleasantry. No, it is not a folly to be under the empire of the most beautiful–the most noble feelings; it is no folly to feel oneself great, strong, invincible; it is not a folly to have a good, honest, and generous heart; it is no folly to be filled with good faith; it is not a folly to devote oneself for the good of others; it is not a folly to live thus out of real life.

No, no; that cold wisdom which pronounces so severe a judgment upon all it cannot do; that wisdom which owes its birth to the death of so many great, noble, and sweet things; that wisdom which only comes with infirmities, and which decorates them with such fine names–which calls decay of the powers of the stomach and loss of appetite sobriety; the cooling of the heart and the stagnation of the blood a return to reason; envious impotence a disdain for futile things;–this wisdom would be the greatest, the most melancholy of follies, if it were not the commencement of the death of the heart and the senses.

I do not, of course, mean to claim for Alphonse Karr a solitary capability of drawing beautiful lessons from Nature, but have instanced his power of finding a quaint mixture of philosophy and deep romance in his garden, because it is more in accordance with the current of my sister's mind, than the gathering of such exquisite, but totally different teaching, as Kingsley drew during the course of his limited "Winter's Walk," or his strolls by "The Chalk Stream."

"Dandelion Clocks" resembles one of Karr's "Letters" in containing the germs of a three-volumed romance, but they are the germs only–and the "proportions" of the picture are consequently well preserved. Indeed, the tale always reminds me of a series of peaceful scenes by Cuyp, with low horizons, sleek cattle, and a glow in the sky betokening the approach of sunset. First we have "Peter Paul and his two sisters playing in the pastures" at blowing dandelion clocks:

Rich, green, Dutch pastures, unbroken by hedge or wall, which stretched–like an emerald ocean–to the horizon and met the sky. The cows stood ankle-deep in it and chewed the cud, the clouds sailed slowly over it to the sea, and on a dry hillock sat Mother, in her broad sun-hat, with one eye to the cows, and one to the linen she was bleaching, thinking of her farm.

The actual outlines of this scene may be traced in the German woodcut to which the tale was written, but the colouring is Julie's! The only disturbing element in this quiet picture is Peter Paul's restless, inquiring heart. What wonder that when his bulb-growing uncle fails to solve the riddle of life, Peter Paul should go out into the wider world and try to find a solution for himself? But the answers to our life problems full often are to be found within, for those who will look, and so Peter Paul comes back after some years to find that:

The elder sister was married and had two children. She had grown up very pretty,–a fair woman, with liquid misleading eyes. They looked as if they were gazing into the far future, but they did not see an inch beyond the farm. Anna was a very plain copy of her in body; in mind she was the elder sister's echo. They were very fond of each other, and the prettiest thing about them was their faithful love for their mother, whose memory was kept as green as pastures after rain.

Peter Paul's temperament, however, was not one that could adapt itself to a stagnant existence; so when his three weeks on shore are ended, we see him on his way from the Home Farm to join his ship:

Leena walked far over the pastures with Peter Paul. She was very fond of him, and she had a woman's perception that they would miss him more than he could miss them.

"I am very sorry you could not settle down with us," she said, and her eyes brimmed over.

Peter Paul kissed the tears tenderly from her cheeks.

"Perhaps I shall when I am older, and have shaken off a few more of my whims into the sea. I'll come back yet, Leena, and live very near to you, and grow tulips, and be as good an old bachelor-uncle to your boy as Uncle Jacob is to me."

* * * * * *


When they got to the hillock where Mother used to sit Peter Paul took her once more into his arms.

"Good-by, good sister" he said, "I have been back in my childhood again, and GOD knows that is both pleasant and good for one."

"And it is funny that you should say so," said Leena, smiling through her tears; "for when we were children you were never happy except in thinking of when you should be a man."

And with this salutary home-thrust (which thoroughly common-place minds have such a provoking faculty for giving) Leena went back to her children and cattle.

Happy for the artistic temperament that can profit by such rebuffs!

scroll


PART III.

YET, how few believe such doctrine springs
      From a poor root,
Which all the winter sleeps here under foot,
      And hath no wings
To raise it to the truth and light of things;
      But is stil trod
By ev'ry wand'ring clod.

O Thou! Whose Spirit did at first inflame
      And warm the dead,
And by a sacred incubation fed
      With life this frame,
Which once had neither being, forme, nor name;
      Grant I may so
Thy steps track here below,

That in these masques and shadows I may see
      Thy sacred way;
And by those hid ascents climb to that day
      Which breaks from Thee,
Who art in all things, though invisibly.
"The Hidden Flower."–HENRY VAUGHAN.

O (illuminated capital for one) NE of the causes which helped to develop my sister's interest in flowers was the sight of the fresh ones that she met with on going to live in New Brunswick after her marriage. Every strange face was a subject for study, and she soon began to devote a note-book to sketches of these new friends, naming them scientifically from Professor Asa Gray's "Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States," whilst Major Ewing added as many of the Melicete names as he could glean from Peter, a member of the tribe, who had attached himself to the Ewings, and used constantly to come about their house. Peter and his wife lived in a small colony of the Melicete Indians, which was established on the opposite side of the St. John River to that on which the Reka Dom stood. Mrs. Peter was the most skilful embroiderer in beads amongst her people, and Peter himself the best canoe-builder. He made a beautiful one for the Ewings, which they constantly used; and when they returned to England his regret at losing them was wonderfully mitigated by the present which Major Ewing gave him of an old gun; he declared no gentleman had ever thought of giving him such a thing before!

back view of Native American woman in traditional dress with cane
Indian Squaw.

Julie introduced several of the North American flowers into her stories. The Tabby-striped Arum, or Jack-in-the-Pulpit (as it is called in Mr. Whittier's delightful collection of child-poems * ), appears in "We and the World," where Dennis, the rollicking Irish hero, unintentionally raises himself in the estimation of his sober-minded Scotch companion Alister, by betraying that he "can speak with other tongues," from his ability to converse with a squaw in French on the subject of the bunch of Arums he had gathered, and was holding in his hand.

This allusion was only a slight one, but Julie wrote a complete story on one species of Trillium, having a special affection for the whole genus. Trilliums are amongst the North American herbaceous plants which have lately become fashionable, and easy to be bought in England; but ere they did so, Julie made some ineffectual attempts to transplant tubers of them into English soil; and the last letter she received from Fredericton contained a packet of red Trillium seeds, which came too late to be sown before she died. The species which she immortalised in "The Blind Hermit and the Trinity Flower," * was T. erythrocarpum.

front view of Native American woman in traditional dress with cane

The story is a graceful legend of an old Hermit whose life was spent in growing herbs for the healing of diseases; and when he, in his turn, was struck with blindness, he could not reconcile himself to the loss of the occupation which alone seemed to make him of use in the world. "They also serve who only stand and wait," was a hard lesson to learn; every day he prayed for some Balm of Gilead to heal his ill, and restore his sight, and the prayer was answered, though not in the manner that he desired. First he was supplied with a serving-boy, who became eyes and feet to him, from gratitude for cures which the Hermit had done to the lad himself; and then a vision was granted to the old man, wherein he saw a flower which would heal his blindness:–

"And what was the Trinity Flower like, my Father?" asked the boy.

"It was about the size of Herb Paris, my son," replied the Hermit. "But instead of being fourfold every way, it numbered the mystic Three. Every part was threefold. The leaves were three, the petals three, the sepals three. The flower was snow-white, but on each of the three parts it was stained with crimson stripes, like white garments dyed in blood."

A root of this plant was sent to the Hermit by a heavenly messenger, which the boy planted, and anxiously watched the growth of, cheering his master with the hope, –"Patience, my Father, thou shalt see yet!"

Meantime greater light was breaking in upon the Hermit's soul than had been there before:

"My son, I repent me that I have not been patient under affliction. Moreover, I have set thee an ill example, in that I have murmured at that which God–Who knoweth best–ordained for me."

And, when the boy ofttimes repeated, "Thou shalt yet see," the Hermit answered, "If God will. When God will. As God will."

And at last, when the white bud opens, and the blood-like stains are visible within, he who once was blind sees, but his vision is opened on eternal Day.

plant with three large leaves forming a triangle and one central flower
Trillium erythrocarpum.

In AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE for 1877 there is another Flower Legend, but of an English plant, the Lily of the Valley. Julie called the tale by the old-fashioned name of the flower, "Ladders to Heaven." The scenery is pictured from spots near her Yorkshire home, where she was accustomed to seeing beautiful valleys blackened by smoke from iron-furnaces, and the woods beyond the church, where she liked to ramble, filled with desolate heaps of black shale, the refuse left round the mouths of disused coal and ironstone pits. I remember how glad we were when we found the woolly-leaved yellow mullein growing on some of these dreary places, and helping to cover up their nakedness. In later years my sister heard with much pleasure that a mining friend was doing what he could to repair the damages he made on the beauty of the country, by planting over the worked-out mines such trees and plants as would thrive in the poor and useless shale, which was left as a covering to once rich and valuable spots.

"Brothers of Pity" * (AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, 1877) shows a deep


landscape with church, mountains, and town buildings
St. Mary's Church, Ecclesfield.


and minute insight into the feelings of a solitary child, which one fancies Julie must have acquired by the process of contrast with her own surroundings of seven brethren and sisters. A similar power of perception was displayed in her verses on "An Only Child's Tea-party." *

She remembered from experiences of our own childhood what a favourite game "funerals" is with those whose "whole vocation" is yet "endless imitation"; and she had watched the soldiers' children in camp play at it so often that she knew it was not only the bright covering of the Union Jack which made death lovely in their eyes, "Blind Baby" enjoyed it for the sake of the music; and even civilians' children, who see the service devoid of sweet sounds, and under its blackest and most revolting aspect, still are strangely fascinated thereby. Julie had heard about one of these, a lonely, motherless boy, whose chief joy was to harness Granny to his "hearse" and play at funeral processions round the drawing-room, where his dead mother had once toddled in her turn.

The boy in "Brothers of Pity" is the principal character, and the animals occupy minor positions. Cock-Robin only appears as a corpse on the scene; and Julie did not touch much on bird pets in any of her tales, chiefly because she never kept one, having too much sympathy with their powers and cravings for flight to reconcile herself to putting them in cages. The flight and recapture of the Cocky in "Lob" were drawn from life, though the bird did not belong to her, but her descriptions of how he stood on the window-sill "scanning the summer sky with his fierce eyes, and flapping himself in the breeze, . . . bowed his yellow crest, spread his noble wings, and sailed out into the æther"; . . . and his "dreams of liberty in the tree-tops," all show the light in which she viewed the practice of keeping birds in confinement. Her verses on "Three Little Nest-Birds" and her tale of the Thrush in "An Idyl of the Wood" bear witness to the same feeling. Major Ewing remembers how often she used to wish, when passing bird-shops, that she could "buy the whole collection and set them all free,"–a desire which suggests a quaint vision of her in Seven Dials, with a mixed flock of macaws, canaries, parrots, and thrushes shrieking and flying round her head; but the wish was worthy of her in (what Mr. Howells called) "woman's heaven-born ignorance of the insuperable difficulties of doing right."

In this (1877) volume of AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE there is a striking portrait of another kind of animal pet, the "Kit" * who is resolved to choose her own "cradle," and not to sleep where she is told. It is needless to say that she gets her own way, since,

There's a soft persistence about a cat
That even a little kitten can show.

She has, however, the grace to purr when she is pleased, which all kits and cats have not!

I'm happy in ev'ry hair of my fur,
They may keep the hamper and hay themselves.

There are three other sets of verses in the volume, and all of them were originally written to old woodcuts, but have since been re-illustrated by Mr. André, and published by the S. P. C. K.

"A Sweet Little Dear" is the personification of a selfish girl, and "Master Fritz" of an equally selfish boy; but his sister Katerina is delicious by contrast, as she gives heed to his schemes:–

And if you make nice feasts every day for me and Nickel, and never keep us waiting for our food,

And always do everything I want, and attend to everything I say, I'm sure I shall almost always be good.

And if I'm naughty now and then, it'll most likely be your fault: and if it isn't, you mustn't mind;

For even if I seem to be cross you ought to know that I mean to be kind.

An old-fashioned fairy tale, "The Magician turned Mischief-maker," came out in 1877; and a short domestic tale called "A Bad Habit"; but Julie was unable to supply any long contributions this year, as in April her seven-years' home at Aldershot was broken up in consequence of Major Ewing being ordered to Manchester, and her time was occupied by the labour and process of removing.

She took down the motto which she had hung over her hearth to temper her joy in the comfort thereof,–Ut migraturus habita,–and moved the scroll on to her next resting-place. No one knew better than she the depth of Mrs. Hemans's definition,–"What is home,–and where,–but with the loving? " and most truly can it be said that wherever Julie went she carried "Home" with her; freedom, generosity, and loving welcome were always to be found in her house,–even if upholstery and carpets ran short! It was a joke amongst some of her friends that though rose-coloured curtains and bevelled-edged looking-glasses could be counted upon in their bed-rooms, such commonplace necessities as soap might be forgotten, and the glasses be fastened in artistic corners of the rooms, rather than in such lights as were best adapted for shaving by!

cabin with outbuildings
South Camp, Aldershot.

Julie followed the course of the new lines in which her lot was cast most cheerfully, but the "mighty heart" could not really support the "little body"; and the fatigue of packing, combined with the effects of the relaxing climate of Bowdon, near Manchester, where she went to live, acted sadly upon her constitution. She was able, however, after settling in the North, to pay more frequent visits to Ecclesfield than before; and the next work that she did for AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE bears evidences of the renewal of Yorkshire associations.

This story, "We and the World," * was specially intended for boys, and the "law of contrast" in it was meant to be drawn between the career which Cripple Charlie spent at home, and those of the three lads who went out into "the World" together. Then, too, she wished, as I mentioned before, to contrast the national types of character in the English, Scotch, and Irish heroes, and to show the good contained in each of them. But the tale seemed to have been begun under an unlucky star. The first half, which came out in the first six numbers of the MAGAZINE for 1878, is excellent as a matter of art; and as pictures of North-country life and scenery nothing can be better than Walnut-tree Farm and Academy, the Miser's Funeral, and the Bee-master's Visit to his Hives on the Moors, combined with attendance at Church on a hot Sunday afternoon in August (it need scarcely be said that the church is a real one). But, good though all this is, it is too long and "out of proportion," when one reflects how much of the plot was left to be unravelled in the other half of the tale. "The World" could not properly be squeezed into a space only equal in size to that which had been devoted to "Home." If Julie had been in better health, she would have foreseen the dilemma into which she was falling, but she did not, and in the autumn of 1878 she had to lay the tale aside, for Major Ewing was sent to be stationed at York. "We" was put by until the following volume; but for this (1878) one she wrote two other short contributions,–"The Yellow Fly; a Tale with a Sting in It," * and "So-so."

To those who do not read between the lines, "So-so" sounds (as he felt) "very soft and pleasant," but to me the tale is in Julie's saddest strain, because of the suspicion of hopelessness that pervades it,–a spirit which I do not trace in any of her other writings. So-so was only the widow's House Dog, but he represents the sadly large class of those who are "neither hot nor cold," and whom Dante saw as

    –the melancholy souls of those
    Who lived withouten infamy or praise,
Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
    Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,
    Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.
The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
    Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
    For glory none the damned would have from them.

. . . .


These have no longer any hope of death;
    And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
    They envious are of every other fate.
No fame of them the world permits to be,
    Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
    Let us not speak of them, but look and pass.

 

"Be sure, my child," said the widow to her little daughter, that you always do just as you are told."

"Very well, mother."

"Or at any rate do what will do just as well," said the small house-dog, as he lay blinking at the fire.

. . . . . .

"For the future, my child," said the widow, "I hope you will always do just as you are told, whatever So-so may say."

"I will, mother," said little Joan. (And she did.) But the house-dog sat and blinked. He dared not speak, he was in disgrace.

"I do not feel quite sure about So-so. Wild dogs often amend their ways far on this side of the gallows, and the Faithful sometimes fall; but when any one begins by being only so-so, he is very apt to be so-so to the end. So-so's so seldom change."

Before turning from the record of my sister's life at Manchester, I must mention a circumstance which gave her very great pleasure there. In the summer of 1875 she and I went up from Aldershot to see the Exhibition of Water-Colours by the Royal Society of Painters, and she was completely fascinated by a picture of Mr. J. D. Watson's, called "A Gentleman of the Road." It represented a horseman at daybreak, allowing his horse to drink from a stream, whilst he sat half-turned in the saddle to look back at a gallows which was visible on the horizon against the beams of rising light. The subject may sound very sensational, but it was not that aspect of it which charmed my sister; she found beauty as well as romance in it, and after we returned to camp in the evening she became so restless and engrossed by what she had seen, that she got up during the night, and planned out the headings of a story on the picture, adding–characteristically–a moral or "soul" to the subject by a quotation from Thomas à Kempis,–Respice finem. "In all things remember the end."

This "mapped-out" story, I am sorry to say, remains unfinished. The manuscript went through many vicissitudes, was inadvertently torn up and thrown into the waste-paper basket, whence it was rescued and the pieces carefully enclosed in an envelope ready for mending; but afterwards lost again for many months in a box that was sent abroad, and now it must ever remain amongst the unwritten.

This incident will, however, serve to show what a strong impression the picture had made upon Julie's mind, so it will readily be imagined how intensely delighted she was when she unexpectedly made the acquaintance, at Manchester, of Mr. Galloway, who proved to have bought Mr. Watson's work, and he was actually kind enough to lend the treasure to her for a considerable time, so that she could study it thoroughly and make a most accurate copy of it. Mr. Galloway's friendship, and that of some other people whom she first met at Bowdon, were the brightest spots in Julie's existence during this period.

In September, 1878, the Ewings removed to Fulford, near York, and, on their arrival, Julie at once devoted herself to adorning her new home. We were very much amused by the incredulous amazement betrayed on the stolid face of an elderly workman, to whom it was explained that he was required to distemper the walls of the drawing room with a sole colour, instead of covering them with a paper, after the manner of all the other drawing-rooms he had ever had to do with. But he was too polite to express his difference of taste by more than looks;–and some days after the room was finished, with etchings duly hung on velvet in the panels of the door,–the sole-coloured walls well covered with pictures, whence they stood out undistracted by gold and flowery paper patterns,–the distemperer called, and asked if he might be allowed, as a favour, to see the result of Mrs. Ewing's arrangements. I forget if he expressed anything by words, as he stood in the middle of the room twisting his hat in his fingers–but we had learned to read his face, and Julie was fully satisfied with the fresh expression of amazement mixed with admiration which she saw there.

One theory which she held strongly about the decoration of houses was, that the contents ought to represent the associations of the inmates, rather than the skill of their upholsterer; and for this reason she would not have liked to limit any of her rooms to one special period, such as Queen Anne's, unless she had possessed an old house, built at some date to which a special kind of furniture belonged. She contrived to make her home at York a very pretty one; but it was of short duration, for in March, 1879, Major Ewing was despatched to Malta and Julie had to begin to pack her Lares and Penates once more.

It may, perhaps, be wondered that she was allowed to spend her time and strength on the labour of packing, which a professional worker would have done far better,–but it is easier to see the mistakes of others than to rectify our own! There were many difficulties to be encountered, not the least of these being Julie's own strong will, and bad though it was, in one sense, for her to be physically over-tired, it was better than letting her be mentally so; and to an active brain like hers "change of occupation" is the only possible form of "rest." Professional packers and road and rail cars represent money, and Julie's skill in packing both securely and economically was undeniably great. This is not surprising if we hold, as an old friend does, that ladies would make far better housemaids than uneducated women do, because they would throw their brains as well as muscles into their work. Julie did throw her brains into everything, big or little, that she undertook; and one of her best and dearest friends,–whose belief in my sister's powers and "mission" as a writer were so strong that she almost grudged even the time "wasted" on sketching, which might have been give to penning more stories for the age which boasts Gordon as its hero,–and who, being with Julie at her death, could not believe till the very End came that she would be taken, whilst so much seemed to remain for her to do here,–confessed to me afterwards she had learned to see that Julie's habit of expending her strength on trifles arose from an effort of nature to balance the vigour of her mind, which was so much greater than that of her body.

During the six months that my sister resided in York she wrote a few contributions for AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE. To the number for January, 1879, she gave "Flaps," a sequel to "The Hens of Hencastle."

The latter story was not written by her, but was a free adaptation which Colonel Yeatman-Biggs made from the German of Victor Blüthgen. Julie had been greatly amused by the tale, but, finding that it ended in a vague and unsatisfactory way, she could not be contented, so took up her pen and wrote a finale, her chief aim being to provide a happy ending for the old farm-dog, Flaps himself, after whom she named her sequel. The writing is so exactly similar to that of "The Hens," that the two portions can scarcely be identified as belonging to different writers. Julie used often to reproach me for indulging in what John Wesley called "the lust of finishing," but in matters concerning her own art she was as great an offender on this score as any one else! Her inability to leave the farm-yard question undecided reminds me of the way in which Dr. Hullah's pupils at the Charterhouse used to tease him when they were finishing their music-lessons, by ending off the piece they had practiced on the chord of the dominant seventh, and then banging, boy-like, out of the room, but waiting outside to listen to the Doctor as he quickly advanced to the piano, whilst the notes were still vibrating, and gently resolved the chord into the tonic!

Julie gave a set of verses on "Canada Home" to the same number as "Flaps," and to the March (1879) number she gave some other verses on "Garden Lore." In April, the second part of "We and the World" began to appear, and a fresh character was introduced, who is one of the most important and touching features of the tale. Biddy Macartney is a real old Irish melody in herself, with her body tied to a coffee-barrow in the Liverpool docks, and her mind ever wandering in search of the son who had run away to sea. Jack, the English hero, comes across Biddy in the docks just before he starts as a stowaway for America, and his stiff, crude replies to her voluble outpourings are essentially British and boy-like:–

"You hope Mickey'll come back, I suppose?"

"Why wouldn't I, acushla? Sure, it was by reason o' that I got bothered with the washin' after me poor boy left me, from my mind being continually in the docks instead of with the clothes. And there I would be at the end of the week, with the captain's jerseys gone to old Miss Harding, and his washing no corricter than hers, though he'd more good-nature in him over the accidents, and iron-moulds on the table-cloths, and pocket handkerchers missin', and me ruined intirely with making them good, and no thanks for it, till a good-natured sowl of a foreigner that kept a pie-shop larned me to make the coffee, and lint me the money to buy a barra, and he says, 'Go as convenient to the ships as ye can, mother: it'll ease your mind. My own heart,' says he, laying his hand to it, 'knows what it is to have my body here, and the whole sowl of me far away.'"

"Did you pay him back?" I asked. I spoke without thinking, and still less did I mean to be rude; but it had suddenly struck me that I was young and hearty, and that it would be almost a duty to share the contents of my leather bag with this poor old woman, if there were no chance of her being able to repay the generous foreigner.

"Did I pay him back? " she screamed. "Would I be the black-hearted thief to him that was kind to me? Sorra bit nor sup but dry bread-and-water passed me lips till he had his own again, and the heart's blessings of owld Biddy Macartney along with it."

I made my peace with old Biddy as well as I could, and turned the conversation back to her son.

"So you live in the docks with your coffee-barrow, mother, that you may be sure not to miss Micky when he comes ashore?"

"I do, darlin'! Fourteen years all but three days! He'll be gone fifteen if we all live till Wednesday week."

"Fifteen? But, mother, if he were like me when he went, he can't be very like me now. He must be a middle-aged man. Do you think you'd know him?"

This question was more unfortunate than the other, and produced such howling and weeping, and beating of Biddy's knees as she rocked herself among the beans, that I should have thought every soul in the docks would have crowded round us. But no one took any notice, and by degrees I calmed her, chiefly by the assertion,–"He'll know you, mother, any how."

"He will so, GOD bless him!" said she. "And haven't I gone over it all in me own mind, often and often, when I'd see the vessels feelin' their way home through the darkness, and the coffee staymin' enough to cheer your heart wid the smell of it, and the least taste in life of something betther in the stone bottle under me petticoats. And then the big ship would be coming in with her lights at the head of her, and myself would be sitting alone with me patience, GOD helping me, and one and another strange face going by. And then he comes along, cold, maybe, and smells the coffee. 'Bedad, but that's a fine smell with it,' says he, for Micky was mighty particular in his aitin' and drinkin'. 'I'll take a dhrop of that,' says he, not noticing me particular, and if ever I'd the saycret of a good cup he gets it, me consayling me face. 'What will it be?' says he, setting down the mug. 'What would it be, Micky, from your mother?' says I, and I lifts me head. Arrah, but then there's the heart's delight between us. 'Mother!' says he. 'Micky!' says I. And he lifts his foot and kicks over the barra, and dances me round in his arms. 'Ochone!' says the spictators; 'there's the fine coffee that's running into the dock.' 'Let it run,' says I, in the joy of me heart, 'and you after it, and the barra on the top of ye, now Micky me son's come home!'"

"Wonderfully jolly!" said I. "And it must be pleasant even to think of it."

There is another new character in the second part of "We," who is also a fine picture,–Alister, the blue-eyed Scotch lad, with his respect for "book-learning," and his powers of self-denial and endurance; but Julie certainly had a weakness for the Irish nation, and the tender grace with which she touches Dennis O'Moore and Biddy shines conspicuously throughout the story. In one scene, however, I think she brings up her Scotch hero neck-and-neck, if not ahead of her favourite Irishman.

This is in Chapter VII., where an entertainment is being held on board ship, and Dennis and Alister are called upon in turn to amuse the company with a song. Dennis gets through his ordeal well; he has a beautiful voice, which makes him independent of the accompaniment of a fiddle (the only musical instrument on board), and Julie describes his simpatico rendering of "Bendemeer's Stream" from the way in which she loved to hear one of our brothers sing it. He had learned it by ear on board ship from a fellow-passenger, and she was never tired of listening to the melody. When this same brother came to visit her whilst she was ill at Bath, and sang to her as she lay in bed,–"Bendemeer's Stream" was the one strain she asked for, and the last she heard.

Dennis O'Moore's performance met with warm applause, and then the boatswain, who had a grudge against Alister, because the Scotch captain treated his countryman with leniency, taunted the shy and taciturn lad to "contribute to the general entertainment."

I was very sorry for Alister, and so was Dennis, I am sure, for he did his best to encourage him.

"Sing 'GOD Save the Queen,' and I'll keep well after ye with the fiddle," he suggested. But Alister shook his head. "I know one or two Scotch tunes," Dennis added, and he began to sketch out an air or two with his fingers on the strings.

Presently Alister stopped him. "Yon's the Land o' the Leal?"

"It is," said Dennis.

"Play it a bit quicker, man, and I'll try 'Scots, wha hae'."

Dennis quickened at once, and Alister stood forward. He neither fidgeted nor complained of feeling shy, but, as my eyes (I was squatted cross-legged on the deck) were at the level of his knees, I could see them shaking, and pitied him none the less that I was doubtful as to what might not be before me. Dennis had to make two or three false starts before poor Alister could get a note out of his throat; but when he had fairly broken the ice with the word "Scots!" he faltered no more. The Boatswain was cheated a second time of his malice. Alister could not sing in the least like Dennis, but he had a strong manly voice, and it had a ring that stirred one's blood, as he clenched his hands and rolled his R's to the rugged appeal:–

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
    Or to victory!

Applause didn't seem to steady his legs in the least, and he never moved his eyes from the sea, and his face only grew whiter by the time he drove all the blood to my heart with–

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
    Let him turn and flee!

"GOD forbid!" cried Dennis, impetuously. "Sing that verse again, me boy, and give us a chance to sing with ye!" which we did accordingly; but as Alister and Dennis were rolling R's like the rattle of musketry on the word turn, Alister did turn, and stopped suddenly short. The Captain had come up unobserved.

"Go on!" said he, waving us back to our places.

By this time the solo had become a chorus. Beautifully unconscious, for the most part, that the song was by way of stirring Scot against Saxon, its deeper patriotism had seized upon us all. Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Sons of Erin, we all shouted at the top of our voices, Sambo's fiddle not being silent. And I maintain that we all felt the sentiment with our whole hearts, though I doubt if any but Alister and the Captain knew and sang the precise words:–

Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa'?
    Let him on wi' me!

The description of Alister's song, as well as that of Dennis, was to some extent drawn from life, Julie having been accustomed to hear "Scots, wha hae" rendered by a Scot with more soul than voice, who always "moved the hearts of the people as one man" by his patriotic fire.

My sister was greatly aided by two friends in her descriptions of the scenery in "We," such as the vivid account of Bermuda and the waterspout in Chapter XI., and that of the fire at Demerara in Chapter XII., and she owed to the same kind helpers also the accuracy of her nautical phrases and her Irish dialect. Certainly this second part of the tale is full of interest, but I cannot help wishing that the materials had been made into two books instead of one. There are more than enough characters and incidents to have developed into a couple of tales.

Julie has often said how strange it seemed to her, when people who had a ready pen for writing consulted her as to what they should write about! She suffered so much from over-abundance of ideas which she had not the physical strength to put on paper.

Even when she was very ill, and unable to use her hands at all, the sight of a lot of good German woodcuts, which were sent to me at Bath, suggested so many fresh ideas to her brain, that she only longed to be able to seize her pen and write tales to the pictures.

Before we turn finally away from the subject of her liking for Irish people, I must mention a little adventure which happened to her at Fulford.

There is one parish in York where a great number of Irish peasants live, and many of the women used to pass Julie's windows daily, going out to work in the fields at Fulford. She liked to watch them trudging by, with large baskets perched picturesquely on the tops of their heads, but in the town the "Irishers" are not viewed with equal favour by the inhabitants. One afternoon Julie was out sketching in a field, and came across one of these poor Irish women. My sister's mind at the time was full of Biddy Macartney, and she could not resist the opportunity of having a chat with this suggestive "study" for the character. She found an excuse for addressing the old woman about some cattle who seemed restless in the field, but quickly discovered, to her amusement, that when she alluded to Ireland, her companion, in the broadest brogue, stoutly denied having any connexion with the country. No doubt she thought Julie's prejudices would be similar to those of her town neighbours, but in a short time some allusion was inadvertently made to "me father's farm in Kerry," and the truth leaked out. After this they became more con- fidential; and when Julie admired some quaint silver rings on her companion's finger, the old woman was most anxious to give her one, and was only restrained by coming to the decision that she would give her a recipe for "real Irish whiskey" instead. She began with "You must take some barley, and put it in a poke–" but after this Julie heard no more, for she was distracted by the cattle, who had advanced unpleasantly near; the Irish woman, however, continued her instructions to the end, waving her arms to keep the beasts off, which she so far succeeded in doing, that Julie caught the last sentence:

"And then ye must bury it in a bog."

"Is that to give it a peaty flavor?" asked my sister, innocently.

"Oh, no, me dear!–it's because of the exciseman. "

When they parted, the old woman's original reserve entirely gave way, and she cried, "Good luck to ye! and go to Ireland! "

Julie remained in England for some months after Major Ewing started for Malta, as he was despatched on very short notice, and she had to pack up their goods; also–as she was not strong–it was decided that she should avoid going out for the hot summer weather, and wait for the healthier autumn season. Her time, therefore, was now chiefly spent amongst civilian friends and relations, and I want this fact to be specially noticed in connexion with the next contributions that she wrote for the MAGAZINE.

In February, 1879, the terrible news had come of the Isandlwana massacre, and this was followed in June by that of the Prince Imperial's death. My sister was, of course, deeply engrossed in the war tidings, as many of her friends went out to South Africa–some to return no more. In July she contributed "A Soldier's Children" * to AUNT JUDY, and of all her Child Verses this must be reckoned the best, every line from first to last breathing how strong her sympathies still were for military men and things, though she was no longer living amongst them:

Our home used to be in the dear old camp, with lots of bands, and trumpets, and bugles, and dead-marches, and three times a day there was a gun,
But now we live in View Villa, at the top of the village, and it isn't nearly such fun.

The humour and pathos in the lines are so closely mixed, it is very difficult to read them aloud without tears; but they have been recited–as Julie was much pleased to know–by the "old Father" of the "Queer Fellows," to whom the verses were dedicated, when he was on a troopship going abroad for active service, and they were received with warm approbation by his hearers. He read them on other occasions, also in public, with equal success.

The crowning military work, however, which Julie did this year was "Jackanapes." This she wrote for the October number of AUNT JUDY; and here let me state that I believe if she had still been living at Aldershot, surrounded by the atmosphere of military sympathies and views of honour, the tale would never have been written. It was not aimed, as some people supposed, personally at the man who was with the Prince Imperial when he met his death. Julie would never have sat in judgment on him, even before he, too, joined the rank of those Dead, about whom no evil may be spoken. It was hearing this same man's conduct discussed by civilians from the standard of honour which is unhappily so different in civil and military circles, and more especially the discussion of it amongst "business men," where the rule of "each man for himself" is invariable, which drove Julie into uttering the protest of "Jackanapes." I believe what she longed to show forth was how the life of an army–as of any other body–depends on whether the individuality of its members is dead; a paradox which may perhaps be hard to understand, save in the light of His teaching, Who said that the saving of a man's life lay in his readiness to lose it. The merging of selfish interests into a common cause is what makes it strong; and it is from Satan alone we get the axiom, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." Of "Jackanapes" itself I need not speak. It has made Julie's name famous, and deservedly so, for it not only contains her highest teaching, but is her best piece of literary art.

There are a few facts connected with the story which, I think, will be interesting to some of its admirers. My sister was in London in June, 1879, and then made the acquaintance of Mr. Randolph Caldecott, for whose illustrations to Washington Irving's "Bracebridge Hall," and "Old Christmas" she had an unbounded admiration, as well as for his Toy Books. This introduction led us to ask him, when "Jackanapes" was still simmering in Julie's brain, if he would supply a coloured illustration for it. But as the tale was only written a very short time before it appeared, and as the illustration was wanted early, because colours take long to print, Julie could not send the story to be read, but asked Mr. Caldecott to draw her a picture to fit one of the scenes in it. The one she suggested was a "fair-haired boy on a red-haired pony,'' having noticed the artistic effect produced by this combination in one of her own nephews, a skilful seven-year-old rider who was accustomed to follow the hounds.

This coloured illustration was given in AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE with the tale, but when it was republished as a book, in 1883, the scene was reproduced on a smaller scale in black and white only.

"Jackanapes" was much praised when it came out in the MAGAZINE, but it was not until it had been reissued as a book that it became really well known. Even then its success was within a hair's-breadth of failing. The first copies were brought out in dull stone-coloured paper covers, and that powerful vehicle "the Trade," unable to believe that a jewel could be concealed in so plain a casket, refused the work of J. H. E. and R. C. until they had stretched the paper cover on boards, and coloured the Union Jack which adorns it. No doubt "the Trade" understands its fickle child "the Public" better than either authors or artists do, and knows by experience that it requires tempting with what is pretty to look at, before it will taste. Certainly, if praise from the public were the chief aim that writers, or any other workers, strove after, their lives for the most part would consist of disappointment only, so seldom is "success" granted whilst the power to enjoy it is present. They alone whose aims are pointed above earthly praise can stand unmoved amidst neglect or blame, filled with that peace of a good conscience which the world can neither give nor take away.

I have spoken of "Jackanapes" as being my sister's best literary work, and will therefore here introduce some valuable notes which she communicated to my youngest brother on her method of working, as I feel sure they will be interesting, and may be useful to other authors:–

Some years ago I had several conversations with my sister, Mrs. Ewing, on the subject of literary composition, with special reference to that art as it ought to be employed in works of fiction, such as she herself produced. I, fortunately, at the time made a few notes of her remarks, and which may now be of interest, as elucidating in some measure the manner of construction employed in the works which she has bequeathed to the world. Referring generally to the subject of construction, she told me that she had been greatly indebted for her own education in such matters to the latter part of the third Letter in Mr. Ruskin's 'Elements of Drawing,' where the first principles of this great question are touched upon, in their application to music, poetry, and painting. It is unnecessary to reproduce here the masterly analyses of the Laws of Principality, Repetition, Continuity, Contrast, Harmony, &c., which are to be found in Mr. Ruskin's work. It is sufficient only to note that Mrs. Ewing felt keenly that they were equally essential to the art of writing as to that of painting; and she held that the great mass of English fiction does not fail to interest us so much for lack of stories to be told, as from the want of an artistic way of telling them. She remarked that the English writers are strangely behind the French in this particular, and that, however feeble the incidents in a French work of fiction often are, the constructive power is commonly of a high order.

It may be of interest to consider for a moment how the laws of construction just spoken of, can be traced in one of Mrs. Ewing's stories. For example, in the story of 'Jackanapes' the law of Principality is very clearly demonstrated. 'Jackanapes' is the one important figure. The doting aunt, the weak-kneed but faithful Tony Johnson, the irascible general, the punctilious postman, the loyal boy-trumpeter, the silent major, and the ever-dear, faithful, loving Lollo,–all and each of them conspire with one consent to reflect forth the glory and beauty of the noble, generous, recklessly brave, and gently tender spirit of the hero 'Jackanapes.' What aunt could fail to dote on such a boy? What friend could resist making a hero of such an inspiring example? What old general could be proof against the brave, dashing gallantry of such a lad? What old soldier could help but be proud of such a cadet? What village lad save himself from the irresistible influence of leaving his father's plough and following Jackanapes to the field of honour? What brother-officer, however seared with sorrow, and made taciturn by trial, could hold that dying hand, and not weep for him who begged for the grace of Christ and the love of God as he passed away? And Lollo, the faithful Lollo, who does not feel that all the sunlight which pours upon his ruddy coat is reflected from the joy of that dear boy's first gallop upon his back?

This is indeed a very striking example of the law of Principality. All these life-like figures group around Jackanapes in subordinate positions, and in all they say, and do, and feel, they conspire to increase his pre-eminence.

The law of Repetition may also be very clearly traced in the same story. Again and again is the village-green introduced to the imagination. It is a picture of eternal peace and quietness, amidst the tragedies of our ever-changing life which are enacted around it. Mr. Ruskin remarks that Turner chiefly used the law of Repetition in his pictures where he wished to obtain an expression of repose. 'In general,' he says, 'throughout Nature, reflection and repetition are peaceful things.'

Another law which is very forcibly introduced into 'Jackanapes' is the law of Contrast. The peace of Nature upon the village-green, as I have just remarked, is sharply contrasted with the changes and chances in the human life around it. The idiotic gabblings of the goose are compared with the cowardly doctrines of the peace-at-any-price politician. The embryo gallant, with his clear blue eyes and mop of yellow curls, is placed vis-à-vis with the wounded hero of many battles, the victim of a glass eye and an artificial toilette. That 'yellow thing,' the captain's child, starts in pursuit of the 'other yellow thing,' the young gosling.

These points will be of interest to those who care to make themselves acquainted with the work of Mr. Ruskin, already referred to, and who try to see how the principles there laid down were, more or less, applied by Mrs. Ewing in her books.

Among her general axioms for the construction of stories may be mentioned the following. She thought it was best to fix first the entire plot of the whole story, as this helps the writer to determine the relative value of persons, places, incidents, &c., in the general idea. She considered, also, that at this stage the whole dramatis personæ should be settled upon and arranged into classes, those for the foreground, those for the middle distance, and those for the background. Another of her axioms was that no single word of conversation should ever be introduced which did not plainly (1) either develop the character speaking, or (2) forward the plot. She thought it well, too, to have a clear understanding of the amount to be ultimately written, and determine how much for each chapter,–and, indeed, for each phrase in the chapter.

With regard to the introduction of passion into stories, she remarked that it was most necessary, but that human feelings are elastic, and are soon over -strained, and that this kind of ammunition should be sparingly fired, with intervals of refreshment.

She was very careful to recommend the study of types of sentences and idioms, which give force and beauty, from the placing and repetition of words, &c. One of the most important doctrines she held, and in an extraordinary manner carried out, was, that if a writer could express himself clearly in one word he was not to use two.


PART IV.

I SHALL know by the gleam and glitter
  Of the golden chain you wear,
By your heart's calm strength in loving,
  Of the fire they have had to bear.
Beat on, true heart, for ever;
  Shine bright, strong golden chain;
And bless the cleansing fire,
  And the furnace of living pain!
ADELAIDE A. PROCTER

T (illuminated capital for towards)OWARDS the end of October, 1879, Julie started for Malta, to join Major Ewing, but she became so very ill whilst travelling through France that her youngest sister, and her friend, Mrs. R. H. Jelf (from whose house in Folkestone she had started on her journey), followed her to Paris, and brought her back to England as soon as she could be moved.

Julie now consulted Sir William Jenner about her health, and, seeing the disastrous effect that travelling had upon her, he totally forbade her to start again for several months, until she had recovered some strength and was better able to bear fatigue. This verdict was a heavy blow to my sister, and the next four years were ones of great trial and discomfort to her. A constant succession of disappointed hopes and frustrated plans, which were difficult, even for Madam Liberality, to bear!

She hoped when her husband came home on leave at Christmas, 1879, that she should be able to return with him, but she was still unfit to go; and then she planned to follow later with a sister, who should help her on the journey, and be rewarded by visiting the island home of the Knights, but this castle also fell to the ground. Meantime Julie was suffering great inconvenience from the fact that she had sent all her possessions to Malta several months before, keeping only some light luggage which she could take with her. Amongst other things from which she was thus parted, was the last chapter of "We and the World," which she had written (as she often did the endings of her tales) when she was first arranging the plot. This final scene was buried in a box of books, and could not be found when wanted, so had to be re-written; and then my sister's ideas seem to have got into a fresh channel, for she brought her heroes safely back to their Yorkshire home, instead of dropping the curtain on them after a gallant rescue in a Cornish mine, as she originally arranged. Julie hoped against hope, as time went on, that she should become stronger, and able to follow her lares and penates, so she would not have them sent back to her, until a final end was put to her hopes by Major Ewing being sent on from Malta to Ceylon, and in the climate of the latter place the doctors declared it would be impossible for her to live. The goods, therefore, were now sent back to England, and she consoled herself under the bitter trial of being parted from her husband, and unable to share the enjoyment of the new and wonderful scenes with which he was surrounded, by thankfulness for his unusual ability as a vivid and brilliant letter writer. She certainly practiced both in days of joy and sorrow the virtue of being lætus sorte meâ, which she afterwards so powerfully taught in her "Story of a Short Life." I never knew her fail to find happiness wherever she was placed, and good in whomever she came across. Whatever her circumstances might be they always yielded to her causes for thankfulness, and work to be done with a ready and hopeful heart. That "lamp of zeal," about which Margery speaks in "Six to Sixteen" * was never extinguished in Julie, even after youth and strength were no longer hers:–

Like most other conscientious girls, we had rules and regulations of our own devising; private codes, generally kept in cipher for our own personal self-discipline, and laws common to us both for the employment of our time in joint duties,–lessons; parish work, and so forth.

I think we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made them too often. I make fewer now, and easier ones, and let them much more alone. I wonder if I really keep them better? But if not, may GOD, I pray Him, send me back the restless zeal, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, which He gives us in early youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in conscience, more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful of one's own comfort and one's own property, more self-satisfied in leaving high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe that one is growing older and wiser. And yet those high examples, those good works, those great triumphs over evil which single hands effect sometimes, we are all grateful for, when they are done, whatever we may have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and enthusiasts for good, as if some special gifts were made to them in middle age which are withheld from other men. Is it not rather that some few souls keep alive the lamp of zeal and high desire which GOD lights for most of us while life is young?

In spite, however, of my sister's contentment with her lot, and the kindness and hospitality shown to her at this time by relations and friends, her position was far from comfortable; and Madam Liberality's hospitable soul was sorely tried by having no home to which she could welcome her friends, whilst her fragile body battled against constantly moving from one house to another when she was often unfit to do anything except keep quiet and at rest. She was not able to write much, and during 1880 only contributed two poems to AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, "Grandmother's Spring," * and "Touch Him if You Dare."

To the following volume (1881) she again was only able to give two other poems, "Blue and Red; or, the Discontented Lobster," and "The Mill Stream"; § but these are both much longer than her usual Verses for Children–and, indeed, are better suited for older readers–though the former was such a favourite with a three-year-old son of one of our bishops that he used to repeat it by heart.

In November, 1881, AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE passed into the hands of a fresh publisher, and a new series was begun, with a fresh outside cover which Mr. Caldecott designed for it. Julie was anxious to help in starting the new series, and she wrote "Daddy Darwin's Dovecote" for the opening number. All the scenery of this is drawn from the neighbourhood of Ecclesfield, where she had lately been spending a good deal of her time, and so refreshed her memory of its local colouring. The story ranks equal to "Jackanapes" as a work of literary art, though it is an idyll of peace instead of war, and perhaps, therefore, appeals rather less deeply to general sympathies; but I fully agree with a noted artist friend, who, when writing to regret my sister's death, said, "Jackanapes" and "Daddy Darwin" I have never been able to read without tears, and hope I never may." Daddy had no actual existence, though his outward man may have been drawn from types of a race of "old standards" which is

large two and a half story stone building, young girl standing in front
Ecclesfield Hall.

fast dying out. The incident of the theft and recovery of the pigeons is a true one, and happened to a flock at the old Hall farm near our home, which also once possessed a luxuriant garden, wherein Phoebe might have found all the requisites for her Sunday posy. A "tea" for the workhouse children used to be Madam Liberality's annual birthday feast; and the spot where the gaffers sat and watched the "new graft" strolling home across the fields was so faithfully described by Julie from her favourite Schroggs Wood, that, when Mr. Caldecott reproduced it in his beautiful illustration, some friends who were well acquainted with the spot believed that he had been to Ecclesfield to paint it.

Julie's health became somewhat better in 1882, and for this volume * she wrote as a serial tale "Lætus Sorte Meâ; or, the Story of a Short Life." This was not republished as a book until four days before my sister's death, and it has become so well known from appearing at this critical time that I need say very little about it. A curious mistake, however, resulted from its being published then, which was that most of the reviewers spoke of it as being the last work that she wrote, and commented on the title as a singularly appropriate one, but those who had read the tale in the Magazine were aware that it was written three years previously, and that the second name was put before the first, as it was feared the public would be perplexed by a Latin title. The only part of the book that my sister added during her illness was Leonard's fifth letter in Chapter X. This she dictated, because she could not write. She had intended to give Saint Martin's history when the story came out in the Magazine, but was hindered by want of space, as her materials proved larger than she expected. Many people admired Leonard's story as much as "Jackanapes," but to me it is not quite so highly finished from an artistic point of view, I think it suffered a little from being written in detachments from month to month. It is, however, almost hypercritical to point out defects; and the circumstances of Leonard's life are so much more within the range of common experiences than those of "Jackanapes," it is probable that the lesson of the Short Life during which a V. C. was won by the joyful endurance of inglorious suffering, may be more helpful to general readers than that of the other brief career, in which "Jackanapes," after "one crowded hour of glorious life," earned his crown of victory.

On one of Julie's last days she expressed a fear to her doctor that she was very impatient under her pain, and he answered, "Indeed you are not; I think you deserve a Victoria Cross for the way in which you bear it." This reply touched her very much, for she knew the speaker had not read Leonard's Story; and we used to hide the proof-sheets of it, for which she was choosing head-lines to the pages, whenever her doctors came into the room, fearing that they would disapprove of her doing any mental work.

In the volume * of AUNT JUDY for 1883 "A Happy Family" appeared, but this had been originally written for an American Magazine, in which a prize was offered for a tale not exceeding nine hundred words in length. Julie did not gain the prize, and her story was rather spoiled by having to be too closely condensed.

She also wrote three poems for AUNT JUDY in 1883, "The Poet and the Brook," "Mother's Birthday Review," and "Convalescence." § The last one, and the tale of "Sunflowers and a Rushlight" (which came out in November 1883), bear some traces of the deep sympathy she had learned for ill health through her own sufferings of the last few years; the same may, to some extent, be said of "The Story of a Short Life." "Mother's Birthday Review" does not come under this heading, though I well remember that part, if not the whole of it, was written whilst Julie lay in bed; and I was despatched by her on messages in various directions to ascertain what really became of Hampstead Heath donkeys during the winter, and the name of the flower that clothes some parts of the Heath with a sheet of white in summer.

In May, 1883, Major Ewing returned home from Ceylon, and was stationed at Taunton. This change brought back much comfort and happiness into my sister's life. She once more had a pretty home of her own, and not only a home but a garden. When the Ewings took their house, and named it Villa Ponente, from its aspect towards the setting sun, the "garden" was a potato patch, with soil chiefly composed of refuse left by the house builders; but my sister soon began to accumulate flowers in the borders, especially herbaceous ones that were given to her by friends, or bought by her in the market. Then, in 1884, she wrote "Mary's Meadow," as a serial for AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, and the story was so popular that it led to the establishment of a "Parkinson Society for lovers of hardy flowers." Miss Alice Sargant was the founder and secretary of this, and to her my sister owed much of the enjoyment of her life at Taunton, for the Society produced many friends by correspondence, with whom she exchanged plants and books, and the "potato patch" quickly turned into a well-stocked flower garden.

Perhaps the friend who did most of all to beautify it was the Rev. J. Going, who not only gave my sister many roses, but planted them round the walls of her house himself, and pruned them afterwards, calling himself her "head gardener." She did not live long enough to see the roses sufficiently established to flower thoroughly, but she enjoyed them by anticipation, and they served to keep her grave bright during the summer that followed her death.

Next to roses I think the flowers that Julie had most of were primulas of various kinds, owing to the interest that was aroused in them by the incident in "Mary's Meadow" of Christopher finding a Hose-in-hose cowslip growing wild in the said "meadow." My sister was specially proud of a Hose-in-hose cowslip which was sent to her by a little boy in Ireland, who had determined one day with his brothers and sisters, that they would set out and found an "Earthly Paradise" of their own, and he began by actually finding a Hose-in-hose, so named it after "Christopher," and sent a bit of the root to Mrs. Ewing.

The last literary work that she did was again on the subject of flowers. She began a series of "Letters from a Little Garden" in the number of AUNT JUDY for November, 1884, and these were continued until February, 1885. The letter for March was left unfinished, though it seemed, when boxes of flowers arrived day by day during Julie's illness from distant friends, as if they must almost have intuitively known the purport of the opening injunction in her unpublished epistle, enjoining liberality in the practice of cutting flowers for decorative purposes! Her room for three months was kept so continuously bright by the presence of these creations of GOD which she loved so well:–

DEAR LITTLE FRIEND,

A garden of hardy flowers is pre-eminently a garden for cut flowers. You must carefully count this among its merits, because if a constant and undimmed blaze outside were the one virtue of a flower-garden, upholders of the bedding-out system would now and then have the advantage of us. For my own part I am prepared to say that I want my flowers quite as much for the house as the garden, and so I suspect do most women. The gardener's point of view is not quite the same.

Speaking of women, and recalling Mr. Charles Warner's quaint idea of all his 'Polly' was good for on the scene of his conflicts with Nature, the 'striped bug' and the weed 'Pulsey,'–namely, to sit on an inverted flower-pot and 'consult' him whilst he was hoeing,–it is interesting to notice that some generations ago the garden was very emphatically included within woman's 'proper sphere,' which was not, in those days, a wide one.

The Letters were the last things that my sister wrote; but some brief papers which she contributed to "The Child's Pictorial Magazine" * were not published until after her death. In the May number "Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks" came out, and in the numbers for June, July, and August, 1885, there were three "Hoots" from "The Owl in the Ivy Bush; or, the Children's Bird of Wisdom." They are in the form of quaint letters of advice, and my sister adopted the "Spectator's" method of writing as an eye-witness in the first person, so far as was possible in addressing a very youthful class of readers. She had a strong admiration for many of both Steele's and Addison's papers.

The list that I promised to give of Julie's published stories is now completed; and, if her works are to be valued by their length, it may justly be said that she has not left a vast amount of matter behind her; but I think that those who study her writings carefully, will feel that some of their greatest worth lies in the wonderful condensation and high finish that they display. No reviewer has made a more apt comparison than the American one in Every Other Saturday, who spoke of "Jackanapes" as "an exquisite bit of finished work,–a Meissonier, in its way."

To other readers the chief value of the books will be in the high purpose of their teaching, and the consciousness that Julie held her talent as a direct gift from GOD, and never used it otherwise than to His glory. She has penned nothing for which she need fear reproach from her favourite old proverb, "A wicked book is all the wickeder because it can never repent." It is difficult for those who admire her writings to help regretting that her life was cut off before she had accomplished more, but to still such regrets we cannot do better than realise (as a kind friend remarked) "how much she has been able to do, rather than what she has left undone." The work which she did, in spite of her physical fragility, far exceeds what the majority of us perform with stronger bodies and longer lives. This reflection has comforted me, though I perhaps know more than others how many subjects she had intended to write stories upon. Some people have spoken as if her forte lay in writing about soldiers only, but her success in this line was really due to her having spent much time among them. I am sure her imagination and sympathy were so strong, that whatever class of men she was mixed with she could not help throwing herself into their interests, and weaving romances about them. Whether such romances ever got on to paper was a matter dependent on outward circumstances and the state of her health.

One of the unwritten stories which I most regret is "Grim the Collier"; this was to have been a romance of the Black Country of coal-mines, in which she was born, and the title was chosen from the description of a flower in a copy of Gerarde's "Herbal," given to her by Miss Sargant:–

Hieracium hortense latifolium, sine Pilosella maior, Golden Mouseeare, or Grim the Colliar. The floures grow at the top as it were in an vmbel, and are of the bignesse of the ordinary Mouseeare, and of an orenge colour. The seeds are round, and blackish, and are carried away with the downe by the wind. The stalks and cups of the flours are all set thicke with a blackish downe, or hairinesse, as it were the dust of coles; whence the women who keepe it in gardens for novelties sake, have named it Grim the Colliar."

I wish, too, that Julie could have written about sailors, as well as soldiers, in the tale of "Little Mothers' Meetings," which had been suggested to her mind by visits to Liverpool. The sight of a baby patient in the Children's Hospital there, who had been paralyzed and made speechless by fright, but who took so strange a fancy to my sister's sympathetic face that he held her hand and could scarcely be induced to release it, had affected her deeply. So did a visit that she paid one Sunday to the Seaman's Orphanage, where she heard the voices of hundreds of fatherless children ascending with one accord in the words, "I will arise and go to my Father," and realised the Love that watched over them. These scenes were both to have been woven into the tale, and the "Little Mothers" were boy nurses of baby brothers and sisters.

Another phase of sailor life on which Julie hoped to write was the "Guild of Merchant Adventurers of Bristol." She had visited their quaint Hall, and collected a good deal of historical information and local colouring for the tale, and its lesson would have been one on mercantile honour.

I hope I have kept my original promise, that whilst I was making a list of Julie's writings, I would also supply an outline biography of her life; but now, if the Children wish to learn something of her at its End, they shall be told in her own words:–

Madam Liberality grew up into much the same sort of person that she was when a child. She always had been what is termed old-fashioned, and the older she grew, the better her old-fashionedness became her, so that at last her friends would say to her, "Ah, if we all wore as well as you do, my dear! You've hardly changed at all since we remember you in short petticoats." So far as she did change, the change was for the better. (It is to be hoped we do improve a little as we get older.) She was still liberal and economical. She still planned and hoped indefatigably. She was still tender-hearted in the sense in which Gray speaks:–

To each his sufferings: all are men
  Condemned alike to groan.
The tender for another's pain,
  The unfeeling for his own.

She still had a good deal of ill-health and ill-luck, and a good deal of pleasure in spite of both. She was happy in the happiness of others, and pleased by their praise. But she was less headstrong and opinionated in her plans and less fretful when they failed. It is possible, after one has cut one's wisdom-teeth, to cure oneself even of a good deal of vanity, and to learn to play the second fiddle very gracefully; and Madame Liberality did not resist the lessons of life.

GOD teaches us wisdom in divers ways. Why He suffers some people to have so many troubles, and so little of what we call pleasure in this world, we cannot in this world know. The heaviest blows often fall on the weakest shoulders, and how these endure and bear up under them is another of the things which GOD knows better than we.

Julie did absolutely remain "the same" during the three months of heavy suffering which, in GOD's mysterious love, preceded her death. Perhaps it is well for us all to know that she found, as others do, the intervals of exhausted relief granted between attacks of pain were not times in which (had it been needed) she could have changed her whole character, and, what is called, "prepared to die." Our days of health and strength are the ones in which this preparation must be made; but for those who live, as she did, with their whole talents dedicated to GOD's service, death is only the gate of life,–the path from joyful work in this world to greater capacities and opportunities for it in the other.

I trust that what I have said about Julie's religious life will not lead children to imagine that she was gloomy, and unable to enjoy her existence on earth, for this was not the case. No one appreciated and rejoiced in the pleasures and beauties of the world more thoroughly than she did: no one could be a wittier and brighter companion than she always was.

Early in February, 1885, she was found to be suffering from a species of blood-poisoning, and as no cause for this could then be discovered, it was thought that change of air might do her good, and she was taken from her home at Taunton, to lodgings at Bath. She had been three weeks in bed before she started, and was obliged to return to it two days after she arrived, and there to remain on her back; but this uncomfortable position did not alter her love for flowers and animals.

The first of these tastes was abundantly gratified, as I mentioned before, by the quantities of blossoms which were sent her from friends; as well as by the weekly nosegay which came from her own Little Garden, and made her realise that the year was advancing from winter to spring, when crocuses and daffodils were succeeded by primroses and anemones.

Of living creatures she saw fewer. The only object she could see through her window was a high wall covered with ivy, in which a lot of sparrows and starlings were building their nests. As the sunlight fell on the leaves, and the little birds popped in and out, Julie enjoyed watching them at work, and declared the wall looked like a fine Japanese picture. She made us keep bread crumbs on the window sill, together with bits of cotton wool and hair, so that the birds might come and fetch supplies of food, and materials for their nests.

Her appreciation of fun, too, remained keen as ever, and, strange as it may seem, one of the very few books which she liked to have read aloud was Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"; the dry humour of it,–the natural way in which everything is told from a boy's point of view,–and the vivid and beautiful descriptions of river scenery,–all charmed her. One of Twain's shorter tales "Aurelia's unfortunate Young Man," was also read to her, and made her laugh so much, when she was nearly as helpless as the "young man" himself, that we had to desist for fear of doing her harm. Most truly may it be said that between each paroxysm of pain "her little white face and undaunted spirit bobbed up . . . as ready and hopeful as ever." She was seldom able, however, to concentrate her attention on solid works, and for her religious exercises chiefly relied on what was stored in her memory.

This faculty was always a strong one. She was catechised in church with the village children when only four years old, and when six, could repeat many poems from an old collection called "The Diadem," such as Mrs. Hemans' "Cross in the Wilderness," and Dale's "Christian Virgin to her Apostate Lover," but she reminded me one day during her illness of how little she understood what she was saying in the days when she fluently recited such lines to her nursery audience.

She liked to repeat the alternate verses of the Psalms, when the others were read to her; and to the good things laid up in her mind she owed much of the consolation that strengthened her in hours of trial. After one night of great suffering, in which she had been repeating George Herbert's poem, "The Pulley," she said that the last verse had helped her to realise what the hidden good might be which underlaid her pain:

Let him be rich and weary; that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
      May toss him to My breast.

During the earlier part of her illness, when every one expected that she would recover, she found it difficult to submit to the unaccountable sufferings which her highly-strung temperament felt so keenly; but after this special night of physical and mental darkness, it seemed as if light had broken upon her through the clouds, for she said she had, as it were, looked her pain and weariness in the face, and seen they were sent for some purpose–and now that she had done so, we should find that she would be "more patient than before." We were told to take a sheet of paper, and write out a calendar for a week with the text above, "In patience possess ye your souls." Then as each day went by we were to strike it through with a pencil; this we did, hoping that the passing days were leading her nearer to recovery, and not knowing that each was in reality "a day's march nearer home."

For the text of another week she had "Be strong and of a good courage," as the words had been said by a kind friend to cheer her just before undergoing the trial of an operation. Later still, when nights of suffering were added to days of pain, she chose,–"The day is Thine, the night also is Thine."

Of what may be termed external spiritual privileges she did not have many, but she derived much comfort from an unexpected visitor. During nine years previously she had known the Rev. Edward Thring as a correspondent, but they had not met face to face, though they had tried on several occasions to do so. Now, when their chances of meeting were nearly gone, he came and gave great consolation by his unravelling of the mystery of suffering, and its sanctifying power; as also by his interpretation that the life which we are meant to lead under the dispensation of the Spirit Who has been given for our guidance into Truth, is one which does not take us out of the world, but keeps us from its evil, enabling us to lead a heavenly existence on earth, and so to span over the chasm which divides us from heaven.

Perhaps some of us may wonder that Julie should need lessons of encouragement and comfort who was so apt a teacher herself; but however ready she may always have been to hope for others, she was thoroughly humble-minded about herself. On one day near the end, when she had received some letter of warm praise about her writings, a friend said in joke, "I wonder your head is not turned by such things"; and Julie replied, "I don't think praise really hurts me, because, when I read my own writings over again, they often seem to me such 'bosh'; and then, too, you know I lead such a useless life, and there is so little I can do, it is a great pleasure to know I may have done some good."

It pleased her to get a letter from Sir Evelyn Wood, written from the Soudan, telling how he had cried over Lætus; and she was almost more gratified to get an anonymous expression from "One of the Oldest Natives of the Town of Aldershot" of his "warm and grateful sense of the charm of her delightful references to a district much loved of its children, and the emotion he felt in recognizing his birthplace so tenderly alluded to." Julie certainly set no value on her own actual MSS., for she almost invariably used them up when they were returned from the printers, by writing on the empty sides, and destroying them after they had thus done double duty. She was quite amused by a relation who begged for the sheets of "Jackanapes," and so rescued them from the flames!

On the 11th of May an increase of suffering made it necessary that my sister should undergo another operation, as the one chance of prolonging her life. This ordeal she faced with undaunted courage, thanking GOD that she was able to take chloroform easily, and only praying He would end her sufferings speedily, as He thought best, since she feared her physical ability to bear them patiently was nearly worn out.

Her prayer was answered, when two days later, free from pain, she entered into rest. On the 16th of May she was buried in her parish churchyard of Trull, near Taunton, in a grave literally lined with moss and flowers; and so many floral wreaths and crosses were sent from all parts of England, that when the grave was filled up they entirely covered it, not a speck of soil could be seen; her first sleep in mother earth was beneath a coverlet of fragrant white blossoms. No resting-place than this could be more fitting for her. The church is deeply interesting from its antiquity and its fine oak-screen and seats carved by monks of Glastonbury, whilst the churchyard is an idyllically peaceful one, containing several yew-trees; under one of these, which overshadows Julie's grave, the remains of the parish stocks are to be seen–a quaint mixture of objects, that recalls some of her own close blendings of humour and pathos into one scene. Here, "for a space, the tired body lies with feet towards the dawn," but I must hope and believe that the active soul, now it is delivered from the burden of the flesh, has realised that Gordon's anticipations were right when he wrote: "The future world must be much more amusing, more enticing, more to be desired than this world,–putting aside its absence of sorrow and sin. The future world has been somehow painted to our minds as a place of continuous praise, and, though we may not say it, yet we cannot help feeling that, if thus, it would prove monotonous. It cannot be thus. It must be a life of activity, for happiness is dependent on activity: death is cessation of movement; life is all movement."

If Archbishop Trench, too, was right in saying,–

The tasks, the joys of earth, the same in heaven will be;
Only the little brook has widen'd to a sea,

have we not cause to trust that Julie still ministers to the good and happiness of the young and old whom she served so well whilst she was seen amongst them? Let her, at any rate, be to us one of those who shine as the stars to lead us unto GOD:

GOD'S saints are shining lights: who stays
    Here long must passe
O'er dark hills, swift streames, and steep ways
    As smooth as glasse;
But these all night,
    Like Candles, shed
Their beams, and light
    Us into bed.

They are, indeed, our pillar-fires,
    Seen as we go;
They are that Citie's shining spires
    We travel to.
A sword-like gleame
    Kept man for sin–
First out, this beame
    Will guide him In.

young girl laying wreath before headstone inscribed JHE May 1885


"If we still love those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love?"
"The Newcomes," Chap. vii.
(The last entry in J. H. E.'s Commonplace Book.)

LIST OF MRS. EWING'S WORKS.

TITLE. FIRST PUBLISHED IN: SUBSEQUENTLY. PUBLISHER.
A Bit of Green. Monthly Packet, July, 1861 "Melchior's Dream, and other Tales." Bell & Sons, 1862.
The Blackbird's Nest --- August, 1861. " "
Melchior's Dream --- December, 1861. " "
Friedrich's Ballad   " "
The Viscount's Friend   " "
The Mystery of the Bloody Hand London Society, January and February, 1865    
The Yew Lane Ghosts Monthly Packet, June, 1865 "Melchior's Dream, and other Tales." Bell & Sons, 1885. (New edition.)
Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances     
      Ida Aunt Judy's Magazine, May, 1866 "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances" Bell & Sons.
      Mrs. Moss --- June and July, 1866 " "
The Burial of the Linnet --- September, 1866 "Songs for Music, by Four Friends" H. King & Co.
    "Papa Poodle, and other Pets" S. P. C. K.
Christmas Wishes --- December, 1866    
Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances     
      The Snoring Ghosts December, 1866; Jan. and February, 1867. "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances" Bell & Sons.
An Idyll of the Wood --- September, 1867 "The Brownies, and other Tales" "
Three Christmas Trees --- December, 1867 " "
Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances     
      Reka Dom --- June, July, August, September, and Oct. 1868 "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances" Bell & Sons.
      Kerguelen's Land --- October, 1868 " "
The Land of Lost Toys --- March and April, 1869 "The Brownies, and other Tales" Bell & Sons.
King William and the Water Sprite --- November, 1869 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
Christmas Crackers --- December, 1869; Jan. 1870 "The Brownies, and other Tales" Bell & Sons.
Amelia and the Dwarfs --- February and March, 1870 " "
The Cobbler and the Ghosts --- February, 1870 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
[Page 85]      
The Nix in Mischief --- April, 1870 " "
Benjy in Beastland --- May and June, 1870 "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales" Bell & Sons.
The Hillman and the Housewife Aunt Judy's Magazine, May, 1870 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
The Neck --- June, 1870 " "
Under the Sun --- July, 1870    
The First Wife's Wedding Ring --- August, 1870 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
The Magic Jar --- September, 1870 " "
Snap Dragons Monthly Packet, Christmas Number, 1870    
Timothy's Shoes Aunt Judy's Magazine, November, December, 1870; January, 1871 "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales" Bell & Sons.
A Flat Iron for a Farthing --- November, 1870, to October, 1871 "A Flat Iron for a Farthing" "
The Widows and the Strangers --- February, 1871 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
The Laird and the Man of Peace --- April, 1871 " "
The Blind Hermit and the Trinity Flower Monthly Packet, May, 1871    
The Ogre Courting Aunt Judy's Magazine, June, 1871 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
The Six Little Girls and the Five Little Pigs --- August, 1871    
The Little Master to his Big Dog --- September, 1871 "Papa Poodle, and other Pets" S. P. C. K.
The Peace Egg --- December, 1871 "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales" Bell & Sons.
Six to Sixteen --- January to October, 1872 "Six to Sixteen" "
Murdoch's Rath --- February, 1872 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
The Magician's Gifts --- March, 1872 " "
Knave and Fool --- June, 1872 " "
The Miller's Thumb --- November, 1872, to October, 1873 "Jan of the Windmill. A Story of the Plains." Bell & Sons.
Ran Away to Sea --- November, 1872 "Songs for Music, by Four Friends" King & Co.
Among the Merrows --- November, 1872    
The Willow Man --- December, 1872 "Tongues in Trees" S. P. C. K.
The Fiddler in the Fairy Ring --- January, 1873 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" "
A Friend in the Garden --- January, 1873    
In Memoriam–Margaret Gatty --- November, 1873 "Parables from Nature." (Complete edition.) Bell & Sons.
[Page 86]      
TITLE. FIRST PUBLISHED IN: SUBSEQUENTLY. PUBLISHER.
Madam Liberality Aunt Judy's Magazine, December, 1873 "A Great Emergency, and other Tales" Bell & Sons.
Old Father Christmas Little Folks "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales", 1873 "
Lob Lie-by-the-Fire {"Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales", 1873} "
    {"Lob Lie-by-the-Fire", 1885}
(Illustrated by R. Caldecott.)
S. P. C. K.
Our Garden Aunt Judy's Magazine, March, 1874 "Our Garden" S. P. C. K.
Dolly's Lullaby --- April, 1874 "Baby, Puppy, and Kitty" S. P. C. K.
The Blue Bells on the Lea --- May, 1874 "The Blue Bells on the Lea" S. P. C. K.
May Day, Old Style and New Style --- May, 1874    
A Great Emergency --- June to October, 1874 "A Great Emergency, and other Tales" Bell & Sons.
The Doll's Wash --- September, 1874 "The Doll's Wash" S. P. C. K.
Three Little Nest-Birds --- October, 1874 "Three Little Nest-Birds" "
Songs for Music, By Four Friends   "Songs for Music, by Four Friends" H. King & Co., 1874
      Ah! Would I Could Forget      
      The Elleree. A Song of Second Sight      
      Faded Flowers      
      Fancy Free. A Girl's Song.      
      From Fleeting Pleasures. A Requiem for One Alive.      
      How Many Years Ago?      
      The Lily of the Lake      
      Madrigal      
      Maiden with the Gipsy Look      
      My Lover's Gift      
      Other Stars      
      The Runaway's Return, or Ran Away to Sea      
      Serenade      
      Speed Well      
      Teach Me (From the Danish.)    
      With a Difference      
[Page 87]      
Cousin Peregrine's Wonder Stories–The Chinese Jugglers Aunt Judy's Magazine, March, 1875    
Waves of the Great South Sea --- May, 1875    
Jack of Pera --- July, 1875    
Good Luck is Better than Gold --- August, 1875 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
Little Woods --- August, 1875    
A Hero to his Hobby Horse --- October, 1875 "Little Boys and Wooden Horses" S. P. C. K.
The Kyrkegrim turned Preacher --- November, 1875    
Hints for Private Theatricals --- November and December, 1875; February, 1876    
Toots and Boots --- January, 1876 "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men" S. P. C. K.
The Blind Man and the Talking Dog --- February, 1876    
The Princes of Vegetation --- April, 1876    
I Won't --- April, 1876 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" S. P. C. K.
Father Hedgehog and His Neighbours --- June to August, 1876 "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales" "
House Building and Repairs --- June, 1876 "Doll's Housekeeping" "
An Only Child's Tea Party --- July, 1876 " "
Dandelion Clocks --- August, 1876    
Our Field --- September, 1876 "A Great Emergency, and other Tales" Bell & Sons.
Papa Poodle --- September, 1876 "Papa Poodle, and other Pets" S. P. C. K.
A Week Spent in a Glass Pond --- October, 1876 "A Week Spent in a Glass Pond" Wells, Darton, & Co.
Big Smith --- October, 1876 "Little Boys and Wooden Horses" S. P. C. K.
The Magician turned Mischief-Maker --- November, 1876 "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" "
A Bad Habit --- January, 1877 "Melchior's Dream, and other Tales" Bell & Sons, 1885. (New edition.)
Brothers of Pity --- April, 1877 "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales" S. P. C. K.
Kit's Cradle --- April, 1877 "Baby, Puppy, and Kitty" "
Ladders to Heaven --- May, 1877    
Boy and Squirrel --- June, 1877 "Tongues in Trees" S. P. C. K.
Master Fritz --- August, 1877 "Master Fritz" "
A Sweet Little Dear --- September, 1877 "A Sweet Little Dear" "
We, and the World --- November, 1877, to June, 1878, and April to October, 1879 "We, and the World" Bell & Sons.
The Yellow Fly --- December, 1877 "Baby, Puppy, and Kitty" S. P. C. K.
So-so --- September, 1878    
[Page 88]      
TITLE. FIRST PUBLISHED IN: SUBSEQUENTLY. PUBLISHER.
Flaps Aunt Judy's Magazine, January, 1879 "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales" S. P. C. K.
Canada Home --- January, 1879    
Garden Lore --- March, 1879    
A Soldier's Children --- July, 1879 "A Soldier's Children" S. P. C. K.
Jackanapes --- October, 1879 "Jackanapes" "
Grandmother's Spring --- June, 1880 "Grandmother's Spring" "
Touch Him if You Dare --- July, 1880 "Touch Him if You Dare" "
The Mill Stream --- August, 1881 "The Mill Stream" "
Blue and Red; or, the Discontented Lobster --- September, 1881 "Blue and Red," &c. "
Daddy Darwin's Dovecote --- November, 1881 "Daddy Darwin's Dovecote" "
Lætus Sorte Meâ; or, the Story of a Short Life --- May to October, 1882 "The Story of a Short Life" "
Sunflowers, and a Rushlight --- November, 1882    
The Poet and the Brook --- January, 1883 "The Poet and the Brook" S. P. C. K.
Mother's Birthday Review --- April, 1883 "Mother's Birthday Review" "
Convalescence --- May, 1883 "Convalescence" "
A Happy Family --- September, 1883    
Mary's Meadow --- November, 1883, to March, 1884    
The Peace Egg. A Christmas Mumming Play --- January, 1884    
Letters from a Little Garden --- November, 1884, to February, 1885    
Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks Child's Pictorial Magazine, May, 1885   S. P. C. K.
The Owl in the Ivy Bush; or, the Children's Bird of Wisdom.---Introduction --- June, 1885   "
---Owlhoot I. --- July, 1885   "
---Owlhoot II. ---August, 1885   "

TRANSLATIONS.

A Child's Wishes From the German of R. Reinick Aunt Judy's Magazine, August, 1866
War and the Dead From the French of Jean Macé --- October, 1866.
Tales of the Khoja From the Turkish --- April to December, 1874
The Adventures of an Elf Adapted from the German --- November and December, 1875
The Snarling Princess Adapted from the German --- December, 1875
The Little Parsnip Man Adapted from the German --- January, 1876

WORKS BY JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

Small 4to, Ornamental Paper Boards, Is. each.


LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE;

or, The Luck of Lingborough.
With Nineteen Illustrations by Randolph Caldecott.

man reclining on floor with dog


THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE.

With Seventeen Illustrations by Gordon Browne.

"A simple, exquisitely tender little story of Aldershot life, the hero being a little boy. Men and women, boys and girls, will, however, read this beautiful lay sermon with pleasure."


DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT:

A COUNTRY TALE.
With Seventeen Illustrations by Randolph Caldecott.

" 'Daddy Darwin's Dovecot' is less than 'Jackanapes' only in that its simpler, homelier theme does not offer quite such full felicity of subject. How well done was 'the setting of a wild graft on an old standard' is told from the talk of two old gaffers gossipping on a sunny wall. There is the same delightful, suggestive commentary in homely proverb or tender household word as made the earlier story a poem."–The Nation, U.S.A.


JACKANAPES.

With Seventeen Illustrations by Randolph Caldecott.

"Among all the illustrated books we are disposed to place first one of the smallest. 'Jackanapes' is, in spite of its title, a somewhat tragical story of soldier life, written by Mrs. Ewing, and illustrated by Mr. Randolph Caldecott. It is hardly necessary to say that the result of such collaboration is simply charming. The grey goose, and the officer in his old-fashioned uniform, and Jackanapes telling his grandfather how he had laid out two shillings at the fair, and how he had since saved twopence towards the £15 requisite for the purchase of a pony–we should have to tell the story and enumerate all the cuts to give an idea of this delightful little book."–Saturday Review, November 3rd, 1883.

LONDON: ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY EDMUND EVANS, RACQUET COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.


NOTES.


[Page 5]

* Reprinted in "A Great Emergency." Bell & Sons.

[Page 8]

* AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, September, 1866. "Little Songs for Little Voices." By A. S. Gatty. Metzler & Co. "Papa Poodle, and other Pets." By J. H. Ewing. Pictured by R. André. S.P.C.K.

[Page 9]

* AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, April, 1877. "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men." S.P.C.K. 1884.

† Ibid., September, 1876. "A Great Emergency and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

[Page 12]

* London: Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden.

[Page 16]

* Words reprinted in "Songs for Music by Four Friends." H. King.

[Page 18]

* AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, May, 1874. "The Blue Bells on the Lea," by J. H. Ewing, depicted by R. André. S.P.C.K.

† "Melchior's Dream, and other Tales." New Edition. Bell & Sons.

[Page 19]

* "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances." By J. H. Ewing. Bell & Sons.

[Page 21]

* AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, September, 1867.

† Ibid., December, 1867. Both reprinted in "The Brownies, and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

‡ On the evening of our arrival at Fredericton, New Brunswick, which stands on the river St. John, we strolled down, out of the principal street, and wandered on the river shore. We stopped to rest opposite to a large old house, then in the hands of workmen. There was only the road between this house and the river, and on the banks, one or two old willows. We said we should like to make our first home in some such spot. Ere many weeks were over, we were established in that very house where we spent the first year, or more, of our time in Fredericton. We called it "Reka Dom," the River House.–A. E.

§ AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE, March and April, 1869, included in "The Brownies, and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

[Page 22]

* Both reprinted in "The Brownies, and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

† Reprinted in "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

‡ "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales," by J. H. Ewing. S.P.C.K.

[Page 24]

* Reprinted in "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

[Page 25]

* The drawing, with whatever temporary purpose executed, is for ever lovely; a thing which I believe Gainsborough would have given one of his own pictures for–old-fashioned as red-tipped daisies are, and more precious than rubies.–Ruskin, "Notes on some of the Pictures at the Royal Academy." 1875.

† Published by the Fine Art Society, Bond-street.

‡ London: Bell & Sons.

[Page 26]

* Reprinted in "Papa Poodle and other Pets." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S.P.C.K.

[Page 27]

* Bemrose & Sons.

† Bell & Sons. 1876.

[Page 28]

* Included in "The Human Face Divine, and other Tales." By Margaret Gatty. Bell & Sons.

[Page 29]

* "We and the World." Bell & Sons.

[Page 30]

* Bell & Sons.

† Reprinted in "Tongues in Trees." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S.P.C.K.

‡ Reprinted in "Songs for Music, by Four Friends." King & Co. 1874.

§ Included in "Parables from Nature." By Mrs. Alfred Gatty. Complete edition. Bell & Sons.

¶ Reprinted in "A Great Emergency, and other Tales." By J. H. Ewing. Bell & Sons.

[Page 31]

* "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

[Page 33]

* "A Great Emergency, and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

† "Verse Books for Children." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

‡ Ibid.

§ Ibid.

¶ Ibid.

[Page 34]

* H. King & Co.

[Page 35]

* "Elleree" is the name of one who has the gift of second-sight.

[Page 36]

* "Bodach Glas," the Man in Grey, appears to a Highland family with the gift of second-sight, presaging death.

† Reprinted in "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales." S. P. C. K.

[Page 37]

* Reprinted in "A Great Emergency, and other Tales." (Bell & Sons.)

† AUNT JUDY'S CHRISTMAS VOLUME, 1877. (Bell & Sons.) "A Sweet Little Dear." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

‡ AUNT JUDY'S CHRISTMAS VOLUME, 1877. (Bell & Sons.)

[Page 38]

* Reprinted in "Little Boys and Wooden Horses." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

† Reprinted in "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men." By J. H. Ewing. S. P. C. K.

‡ Ibid.

[Page 37]

* "A Week Spent in a Glass Pond." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. (Darton, Gardner, & Co., Paternoster-buildings.)

[Page 41]

* Reprinted in "A Great Emergency, and other Tales." (Bell & Sons.)

[Page 43]

* Reprinted in "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales." By J. H. Ewing. S. P. C. K.

† Reprinted in "Little Boys and Wooden Horses." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

‡ Reprinted in "Doll's Housekeeping." Ibid.

§ "An Only Child's Tea Party." Ibid.

¶ "Papa Poodle and other Pets." Ibid.

[Page 48]

* "Child Life." Edited by J. G. Whittier. (Nesbitt & Co.)

† "We and the World." (Bell & Sons.)

[Page 49]

* "Monthly Packet." May, 1871.

[Page 50]

* "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men." By J. H. Ewing. S. P. C. K.

[Page 52]

* "An Only Child's Tea-party." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

† "AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE," 1874. "Three Little Nest-Birds," By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

‡ "AUNT JUDY'S MAGAZINE," September, 1867. Reprinted in "The Brownies, and other Tales." Bell & Sons.

[Page 53]

* "Kit's Cradle." Reprinted in "Baby, Puppy, and Kitty." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André.

† [1] "A Sweet Little Dear." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.
  [2] "Master Fritz." Ibid.
  [3] "Boy and Squirrel." Reprinted in "Tongues in Trees." Ibid.

‡ "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales." S. P. C. K.

[Page 54]

* "We, and the World." Bell & Son.

[Page 55]

* Reprinted in "Baby, Puppy, and Kitty." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

[Page 63]

* "A Soldier's Children." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

[Page 69]

* "Six to Sixteen." By J. H. Ewing. Bell & Sons.

[Page 70]

* "Grandmother's Spring." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

† "Touch Him if You Dare." Ibid.

‡ "Blue and Red." Ibid.

§ "The Mill Stream." Ibid.

¶ "Daddy Darwin's Dovecote.." By J. H. Ewing. Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. S. P. C. K.

[Page 72]

* "AUNT JUDY'S ANNUAL VOLUME," 1882. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo-place, S. W.

† "The Story of a Short Life." By J. H. Ewing. Illustrated by Gordon Browne. S. P. C. K.

[Page 73]

* "AUNT JUDY'S ANNUAL VOLUME." Bemrose & Son, 23, Old Bailey.

† "The Poet and the Brook." By J. H. Ewing. Depicted by R. André. S. P. C. K.

‡ "Mother's Birthday Review." Ibid.

§ "Convalescence." Ibid.

[Page 75]

* S. P. C. K.

About This Edition

Sections of the text containing long quotations, which were indicated in the original printing by narrower spacing of the lines, and sometimes by use of double quotes, are here set off from the main text as blockquotes.

Footnotes have been moved from the end of each page to a separate section at the end of the book, and are linked to by hyperlinks.

Some corrections to the listings for "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales", 1873 and "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire", 1885 have been supplied by Chris Little. The exact information given on the original page can still be viewed by looking at the page graphic.

Placement, size, and colour of illustrations may vary from the originals.