PROBATION: A TAKE OF THE LANCASHIRE COTTON FAMINE;

BY MISS JESSIE FOTHERGILL,

Author or "Healey," "Aldyth," "The First

Violin," etc.

CHAPTER X,

" DEEPER AND DEEPER STILL,

If "was a lovely Sunday afternoon on which Mylcs took his way to Stonogate. He found Aclriennc alone. ' She said her uncle was taking his afternoon airing in his Bath chair in the garden, and did not wish to be disturbed ; his old servant, Brandon, was with him.' " But sitdown," she continued, " and we can have a talk." With that she picked iip her knitting, and began to work. "You will talk," said Myles, "if you keep your promise. You promised to tell me about yourself." "Do you really <vant to hoar that ? " I came on purpose." " Well, I will tell it you, and I hope it •will have the effect I intend." "What efl'cct is that?" " You are determined to look upon me (I have seen it, so don't be at the trouble of denying it) as something fine and deli cate, and unused to roughness and hard ship." '' Yes, one can see plainly enough that you arc that." "Can one? Well, I'll begin my story, and you shall learn how appearances may deceive." Adrienne related well, She did not ex aggerate ; there was nothing strained—no striving after effect ; but there was colour, pathos, life, in her talc, and a subtle poetry thrown over all by her way of looking at things. Myles, in listening, felt as if he were actually wandering with her on that nomadic life she spoke of ; through the great foreign capitals, and the country villages, and the towns, big and little ; to be sojourning with her in the gay, feverish watering places ; to survey the distant, rose-tinted Alps. He utterly forgot where he was, and knew only her and her life. There had been two brothers, she told him, of whom her father was the youngest, and her uncle the elder. Kith and kin they had none, and their patrimony was small. Both were gifted, but in different ways. Adrian, her father, was artist to the marrow of his bones. Richard, her uncle, had also some taste for art, but more for the analytical and critical than of the synthetic descrip tion ; he bad been, moreover, at one time a practical man of business, and had made money—he was not rich but thoroughly in dependent. Her father had had the gift of spending, not ot making. The brothers had parted early. Adrian, as soon as he was his own master, had said farewell to home, and had gone, first to Germany, there to study the music which his soul loved, .and > which had beautified his otherwise, weary disappointed life. Some time was spent in Germany ; then two or three years in miscellaneous and somewhat aimless travel; then back again }ioor profesor, and man of science won his leart, as he hers, and they married. With marriage came the feeling of an in sufficioncy of means, and the desire to augment them led him into business specu lations of a nature which he did not in the least understand : the bubble burst, and Adrian Blissct found himself a ruined man in less than a year after his marriage, Adrienne's mother died at|her birth ; the girl had never known that holy bond, however much she might have longed for it. Her father chose to lay part, of the cause of his wife's death to the anxiety induced by his extravagance and folly—moreover, he had adored her, and from the hour of her death he had been a changed man. He had his own living and that of his child to gain, but he settled nowhere.; His life became nomadic. He and the little one did not sojourn long in the tents of any particular tribe. Scarce a city or a town of any impor tance in Europe but had sheltered the un conscious head of the infant, or been trodden by the child's uncertain feet, or by the sedate step of the maiden," careworn beforo her time, while she knew intimately many an out of the way nook, unnamed by Murray, Bradshaw, or Baedeker, amongst Italian hills, deep in the sunny lauds of France, Thuringion woods and slopes, or sleepy red-roofed' Rhenish hamlets. A restless ghost drove the musician with his child and his violin hither and thither, never permitting him to slay long in any one place and gather substance; but ever, so soon as the novelty had worn off, seeming to drive him forth on a fresh search after— what ? Adrienne had learnt at an early age to ask herself that question, and sorrowfully to give up the answer. Sometimes he was in funds, when he showered all kinds of presents upon her, and calling her his dear child, his Ilerzallevlicbestc ; but oftener they were plunged in poverty, sore, sordid, dreadful poverty. His moods varied distressingly, from kindness that had in it something fitful and sinister up to the dark and melan choly silence which was his most frequent humour. He was proud, and his pride was of a most touchy and intractable Kind; it offended men of business, and estranged friends and pupils. . . Adiiennc liad had many strange teachers and many strange lessons, and the whole had combined into a varied and truly, most unconventional education. Her father had lavished musical training upon her. At Florence, where they stayed a whole year, longer than anywhere else, she had wan dered about with a kind-hearted old artist, who led her about with him to the great galleries, and sowed her the grandest pictures, and made her know the beautiful buildings, till she had imbibed tho undying loveliness of such masterpieces as Giotto's Champanilc, or Michael Angelo's Duomo, and had discovered that her favorite thingf in Florence was the "Penserio "Medici o the last named artist. • , ,

" Yov remind me of him," she added, sud denly lookiug at Myles. And she had sat, at thirteen years of age, for a picture of "Gravity." " Was that what he called you ?" asked jMyles.

"Yes. Gravity, or.Sedatcness, was his ; name for me—and it suited me."

SiC had had to part from her good old friend, and that had cost her the pain which ■parting brings to those who know tliey will •not meet again. In JEWis, Adrienno had had lessons in democracy from a young universal genius, whose talaits were too vast to stoop to any ordiuaiy w,flr.k °f life- He lived in a garret, and planned .schemes of a perfect republic Adnenue ha<l not felt much grief on parting fromhiw,'

A monstrous -learned professor, who lived at Bonn, in a 'Schta frock slippers, and spec tacles, had taught ugv a little store of Greek and Latin. But her greatest teacher had been a strangd," "absent-looking professor, in Beriin,—a man of literature and philoso phy,, who had boon very fond of her, and had giye^a her frooly of Jiyj yeiy best. Her

uncle, Mr Blisset, looked upon this as a providential circumstance, for he found ■when she came to him that he had no tryo to deal with, but one already instructed in philosophy and its terminology. Two years ago her father had died ; and just bforo his death, she had learned for the first time that they possessed any relation in the world. She had received a letter to give to her uncle. She fulfilled the behest, and that was how she first met Mr Blisset. "And what did he say? How did he receive you ?" asked Myles, pagerly. " I was chilled," said she, " as I sat op posite him and saw his pale, impressive face, and watched how he raised bis eyes now and then from that letter. He gave me no reply that night; told me nothing, did not intimate whether he were pleased or dis pleased to see mo, but ordered a room to be prepared tor mo ; and the next day ho told me that my father had asked him in his letter to give me a shelter until I was able to find some employment by which I could support myself. My uncle said that if I could endure to live buried alive with an old man, and work hard at a sedentary employ ment, he would give me a homo, and pay mo a certain sum every year. I accepted his proposal gratefully, and have never ropented it, and I trust he never will, either." There spoke the true Adricnno Blisset. •'And you are happy here ?" "As happy as I expect to be. It is a great thing not to be miserable." " That's what our rulers appear to think we working men ought to feel," said Mylcs sardonically, his thoughts for the moment ilying od' at a tangent, "Arc you bitter against your rulers? asked Adricnno, tranquilly. " I am bitter against some of thorn—a pampered set of ricli men, who never had a care in their lives, but don't mind how many other people have to bear. There are some now—Bright, and Cobden, and the like—for them I'd die. There's that in their faces which says they have not a mean thought, nor a desire but for our good ; but the most of them"—he shrugged his shoulders—" those lily-handed politicians who call themselves Radicals in tliesc days, and plan how to prevent a working man from getting his beer, but have half a dozen sorts of wine at their own tables, and go mincing about at public meetings, talking lightly of trials that would make thorn cringe if they had to face them : talking about " supply and demand," and how to improve the condition of the lower orders— isn t that the phrase ? Much they know about the lower orders, and liow to improve them ! They don't know what ail s them yet." Ho laughed sarcastically. " It is true, they arc a somewhat cmas cula'e type," said she ; " but I don't see what right you have to blame them much. It is the working man's own fault that they can do no more for him." "His own fault!" ho echoed, incredu lously. " Now, don't eat me up, please ! I wonder if you and I differ essentially in first principles on this subject. You have thought about it, haven't you ?" " Ay, I have. I've plenty of reason to think about, when I see such fellows as , Frederick Spenceley and young Mallory living on the fat of the land, without having lifted a finger to get it, or proved by a single ant fet thoXJ™»to^ AUl . ielllu .., siowiy, " you say you have seen him : has he come home ?" " No, I meant to speak figuratively. I don't see him but I know it is so. If I don't know him, I know the likes of him " "But what about him?" she asked, still with the same slowness and a kind of hesitation. " What has he done wrong ?" "He has done nothing ; that's-what he has done wrong," said Myles. " Well, he's .coming homo soon :we shall see how he breasts the storm—for we are in for a storm, sooner or later. But don't you think, Miss Blisset, it must make a man think to see these contrasts—a man who has the least bit of a power of thought ?" " No doubt, and what conclusion have you come to in the matter ?" " The conclusion that it's a crying injus tice." "To whom ?" " To—well, to put it broadly, we'll say to the working man—but I mean to those in general who work very hard, and get very little." . " In what way ?" " Miss Ulisset ! Where is the justice of fellows like that having that money without cither rhyme or reason ; and of fellows like " "You," suggested Adrienno demurely. " I don't mean me in particular, but my class in general, earning from thirty to sixty shillings a week—the very best paid of us— in payment for hours and hours of close, hard work." ' " I suppose it is not the work you object to?" "No. I like work. 1 should be lost without my work. ""The property which these young men enjoy has been earned with trouble as great, or probably from an intellectual point of view, greater than your weekly wages." "But not by them." "Suppose it had been earned by you, and you wißiicd to leave it to your only son, whom you had educated with a view to his inheriting it, and the law had stepped in and said you should not but should leave it amongst a, number of working people whom you had never seen or heard of—how would you like that ?" "But that is an exaggerated view of the case." ' '. I don't sec it. I don't believe you have ever considered the subject fairly. And answer me this : suppose the average working man became possessed of that money, or of part of it— money which he had not earned —money which had become his by a lucky chance ;do you think his use of it would be worse, or as good as, or better than the use made of it by those two of whom we are speaking ? Do you think it would do him a real and permanent good; increase his self-respect, lessen his self indulgence, make him steadier, soberer, more inwardly dignified, worthy, arid honourable ?" She was looking earnestly at him, and Myles frowned, the words driven back from his lips. Did he know one man amongst his fellow-workmen on whom the possession o.f such money would have an effect ? Would it have such an efl'cct upon himself ? The generalities of the writers who cried up the working niau and his wrongs seemed suddenly to grow small, and to shrink into the background. '"Oh," went on Adrienne, " I don't think you working men know in the least how noble your work intrinsically is. You only see that others are outwardly better off than you, and you clamorously demand a share of that wealth. You don't see bow disastrous to your best interests such an acquisition would be." Myles had started up, feeling terribly humiliated. "' You think so ill of us !"' he exclaimed. "You could come and see us yesterday, and talk to my sister as if she had been your sister—and now you reproach us in this way. Goodbye 1" " Stop !" said she, laying her Land upon his arm, and looking earnestly into Ms face.

'' How wild and impatient you are! Think a moment! It is not of you lam speaking. Do you know any other working man to whom I could speak in this way ? She paused. It was true ! Perhaps Harry Ashworth might hear those words and bear them—he'knew of no other who would do so : and while he was stung and tortured by what she said, he felt a bitter conscious ness that it was true. But he stood still, and waited to hear the end. H " I am speaking to you with a purpose, Adrienne went on in the same tone, low and quiet, but full of vehemence. "Since that nignt when you stepped forward in my defence, I have thought much about you, very much. 1 have studied you, and you do not know how well-used I am to studying people. The more I have studied you, the more I have felt that you were both gene rous and high-minded—and terribly hot tempered," she added, with a smile, which Mylcs thought must have charmed the temper of a ravening wolf. " Just think < what you, a workman, might do by setting an example to your fellow-workmen. Take the right side. You are too good for the commonplace career of an ordinary ' intelli gent working man,' for a blind submission to trade union rules, and for an obstinate resistance to yonr masters, just because they are your masters, or because your union bids you resist them. Don't be a tool; use your reason: consider the why and wherefore of things. Be answerable to your conscience alone for all you say and do. Help to show your fellows that all improve ment in their condition must arise actively from within, not be received passively from without—you know that, and own it, don t you ?' " Yes," said Mylcs, quietly, folding his arms, and leaning against the mantelpiece, his eyes fixed upon her as she stood before him, with her head a little thrown back ; her eyes alight, looking beautiful in her energy and excitement. " I wish," she said, " I often wish that I were a working woman, like your sister. I would show you what I meant; how toil could be ennobled," She paused. Myles' heart was beating wildly. Something, whether God or devil, he had no time to think, hurried quick words from his lips; in a voice as low, as vehement as her own had been, he said : "Do you? And suppose it ever came to the point 1 Suppose some day some work ing man, came to you and told you he loved you : that he could sec how toil had been ennobled, if you would help him to do it-there would be an end to your philosophy. You would think of the cottage to live in, the floors to scrub, the rough neighbours, the course common life, the children to tend, and make, and mend, and sew for ; and if you could get over that, there would be the man himself a great rough fellow—a workman, not a gentleman, like—like our sort. You would have to work for him, too; to cook, and sew, and wash for him ; to obey him— you ; When he said, ' Do this,' you must do it, and when he called, ' Come here !' you must go to him. That's the way amongsjt us working people. What about the ennobling of toil then ?" He spoke jeeringly, and hated himself for doing so; and listened for her answer in a state of wild, if silent, excite ment. Her hands had dropped, her eyes had sunk, her face was burning; she turned away. If he could have trusted himself to his knees and begged her pardon. " Oh, Myles ! said she, at last, in a very low voice. He bit the lip till the blood came, at that sound; the most maddening, in its mingled sweetness and bitterness, he had everlieard. " I suppose I gave you the right to say that," she said, " and to demand an answer too. You put it tersely, certainly. As you speak, I can see the very life rising before me that you picture, "And yourself in it f said he, still with a sneer, though he would have given the world to ask her to forgive him. "No. You forget something," she re plied, walking to the window, while he still leaned against the mantel-piece. "You made it. all hard and sordid. You forgot the very ' ennobling' that began the dis cussion. I could fancy myself in such a home —a working man's wife—but to become that, I must love that man ; and in the life you describe there was no love. The man I loved, be he workman or prince, must be a truegentleman—not a brute." "Ah 1 and supposing you met this working man—or whoever he might be ?" suggested Myles, in a calm, restrained kind of voice. " If I met him, and if I loved him, and he loved me, and asked me to marry him, I would say 'yes ; ' and I would love him, *nd serve him faithfully to the end of my life." The words fell softly aud gently, almost timorously, as if she hesitated to speak of such a thing ; and yet with a certain gentle 'firmness which said that they were no sentimental verbiage, but expressed the steadfast feeling of a steadfast lieart. But each word was was like a drop of liquid fire in the young man's veins. She seemed sud denly to be close beside him—a possibility, a thing he might dream of—and fifty thou sand times higher and farther off, and more impossible to him than ever. How could he ever hope to bend that heart to love him ? The very thought was insanity. He mastered liis emotion, and walked up to her. She turned, but did not look at him. "I beg your pardon, most humbly," said

"It is granted freely. I daresay it has Leon good for me ;it has reduced my vague theories to the language of common sense. I had no right to reproach you with the fault of your class, and expect nothing but milk and honey from your lips in return. We understand each other. Oh, but yours is a biting tongue !It cuts like a knife." "It forgot itself when it turned against you. But, remember, your words had roused me. You made me blush for my own 'vague theories,' as you call them. If you could not have said what you did to any other workman; do you suppose I could have spoken so to any other young lady ?" V "No, no. I suppose not," said she, but her face was still downcast. The glance which he at last received wavered almost timidly. She resumed her seat, and her work, saying : " And you will think of what I have said ?" " I will—seriously. I believe you are right, but the thing was too wonderful for me. I could not attain unto it—all at once." The conversation was turned, as if by one consent, to books. Adrienno's heart was beating unwontedly fast; her knight had not only surprised] but somewhat subdued her ; delighting her at the same time. He was no tool; he could turn upon her, and he had the front of a ruler. That glance and that voice were not to be forgotten. She thrilled as she remembered them. She was glad lie had not gone ; the sensation that lie was still there was pleasureable, with a strange potency of strength. The door opened, and Mr Blisset was wheeled in and a servant brought afternoon tea. Then Mr Blisset began to talk, and Myles to listen. Mr Blisset had some of his npice's conversational power.. The time flew insensibly, till supper was announced.

Mylcs rose, fearing he had intruded too °^No," said Mr Blisset. "Stay, unless you are tired, and my niece will give us some music." _ . He looked at her, and she said, " Yes, do stay !" And Myles Etayed. ■ That evening Adrienne sang some songs. ■ She finished with " Ncite Liebc,_ neves Leben," and Myles went horne > with its last passionate words ringing in his cars : Licbc, Liebe, lass' mich los! Would it ever "let him loose," that love which had sprung up so suddenly and strongly, making every other feeling weak in the glow of its might and strength ?

CHAPTER XL

PROMISES,

THAT visit was hut the first of a long series. Mr Blisset was pleased to see the young man who listened so patiently and so deferentially to him, and Mylcs had an ever- growing conviction that Mr Blisset s views of men and things, of right and wrong, were deeper and sounder than his own "riper, truer, and more justly balanced. Myles learnt much in these visits and con versations. Adrienne had-.been many times to the cottage on the Townfield, and had com pletely won the hearts of Mary and Edmund. She had opened up a new field of delight and wonder to the hoy by putting him in the way of studying botany, and his enthusiasm knew no bounds. She lent him books and specimens, and Harry Ashworth who was a great walker, brought him all kinds of plants, and ferns, and mosses from the moor ou which he was wont to spend his Saturday afternoons or Sunday morn ings. When Myles and Adrienne were m the house at the same,time, they seemed to have little to say to each other ; which was, perhaps, not surprising, for their subjects were not those discussed by Mary and Edmund. Harry Ashworth had a great deal to ask Miss Blisset about music ; she com forted him, too, for she helped him to some scientific understanding of the mighty harmonies of which he was fast losing the outward apprehension. Harry had not read much about music or musicians ; he had, while his hearing had been pretty good, contented himself with drinking in the sounds themselves. Adrienne soon dis covered that the sorrow of his life was his failing in hearing, and one evening it oc curred to her to tell him the story of Beethoven. Mary and Harry and she happened to be alone. Adrienne began,and related that saddest of stories. It had the effect she intended. Harry sat with one hand shading his face, in an attitude which he had assumed soon after she began the story, when she said : '' And at last lie wrote to one of his friends and confessed that he was growing quite deaf—that if he went to the opera, he must sit close to the orchestra, and even then, even leaning over towards it, he could scarcely hear." Mary went on knitting, Adrioune's voice, somewhat raised, slow, distinct, and clear, told the tale of that mighty genius— Christlike in the immensity of iU woe, and the utterness of his separation from those around him. She went through it all. She told him about the great symphonies, about Beethoven's one or two sad, luckless love episodes; his poverty ; his love for the tlianl-loca jrniina n*nflia»to, -Jn'a .jiophow • the performance of the Choral Symp hoy—of that great adagio "in which we descern the slowly talking movement of a god !". " When it was over," Adrienne went on, " the audience were almost mad with rapture and dcligliht, and the applause was deafening—thundering it resounded through and through the great room ! The master still stood with his baton in his hand, his back to the audience, till one of the voca lists gently turned him round, and he saw them all—how they were wild with pleasure and emotion ; he had thus moved them by his heavenly music to 'joy,' and he had heard no sound of it all." She paused it was the life which she most loved in all truth or poetry : to her Beeth oven's sufferiugs were as actual as his genius or his grandeur. She saw Harry look at her with an ex* preasion which told her that he too under stood, and she went on to the end—told of the bitter loneliness of those last years, that death in harmony with the life—that passing away of the Titan soul-in the sublime music of the spring thunderstorm, and then she was silent. Harry looked at her for a moment, started up, and.took her baud. ~-i " Thank you, miss,;' said he and left the koiise. " Eh, Miss Blisset, said Mary, wiping her eye, "you're like no one else, as ivver I heerd tell on afore. You've done a kindness to yon, poor lad, such as he never had yet" " I'm very glad if you think so.": " Yo've gi'en him summat to console him. He'll go. about now, thinking he may bear his deafness quite easy like, seem' yon man as yo' towd us on were so great and patient. His mind is fair beautiful—Harry's mind is," said Mary, moved out of all reti cence. " I iike him very much," said Adrienne ; " very much indeed." "Ay! He's good—good to th' marrow of his bones, he is." "Like you Mary. He and you are well ■matched." " Eh, nay ! Eh don't think o* that ! He's ne'er said nowt about it." " He will some time !" ..-.. Mary was silent, with a downcaet face, till at last she said : " I know you'll ne'er say a word to no one about it. I can trust you to tell you this, as whether he ever says owt about it or not, the vary thowt of ony other mon than him fair gives me a turn." "Yes," said Adrienne. "And you deserve to l»e happy, Mary, I wonder how it is that you and all yours are so different from other people. I always feel well and ■ happy, and right with the world, when I am: with you." Later, as Myles walked with her up Blake-street, Adrienne remarked that the end of September was approaching and the evenings darkened earlier. , " Yes," said Myles, '• soon winter will be here. And then now then you," he added to a a passer by, who gave Adrienne a very close berth; mind your manners when you're passing a lady." "I didn't know you had lady friends,. Myles Heywood," replied a smooth voice, as the offender paused* and looked after them. " Oh, it's you !" said Myles with tren chant contempt. "If I'd known, I wouldn't have troubled to speak to you." And lie passed on. ' '•Who is the man ?" asked Adrienne. ". He's my—stepfather,' said Myles, in a peculiar voice. Adrienne had heard the whole story from Mary ; Myles had never been able to speak of it. " Oh, forgive mo for saying it, but I wish you had not spoken to him in that way." "Why ? How ?" he stammered. "Has he ever done you any harm ?" "Not directly; but I can't abide the very looks of him." " There !" said she, with a somewhat nervous smile ; " you are too contemptuous. Keverence is better than contempt; it is indeed,".

" Keverence ! Would you have me rever ence him ?" " Yes. You ought to reverence human nature—your own nature—in him. If you could have heard yourself speak ! Do you know what you would do if anyone spoke to you in that way ?" "What?" •' Why, you would—l think you would shake him. I can just see you make one, stride toward him, and fasten upon him— poor fellow !—to teach him manners." "You mean that I have none myself. Well you may be right." "Are you offended. ?" " Miss Blisset —you could not offend " I think I could. Bnt do think of what I have said ; and try riot to he so contemp tuous. Will you?" _• "The next time I meet Jim Hoyle, ril i take off my hat to him politely—since you ; wish it." „ . , It " You will drive me to dispair ! How, different you are from your reasonable', sister, who sees the right hearings of things at once; and from your sensitive brother^ "Yes, Ned "is like a girl for delicacy, 11 • said Myles, a sarcastic flavour in his.voice. : " '' Well Miss Blisset, I will try hard to pleasa you. Next week there's a fellow coming: that I Jucvea,' contempt for, if I ever had for anyone." " Who may that be ? "Mi- Sebastain Mallory, our so-called, master." . '_' ' A pause. Then a hesitating "Indeed!' from her, the intonation of which Myles did - not remark. ~-..• • • - "So I'll try to he polite to him, if our, paths cross—which I hope they won't. "Perhaps they may not. But now do try," said she. ""You may find it easier than you think."' .'"•■' ■ ,•,,•, s They parted at the wicket, and Myles. went home, to find Edmund gone to bed,, and to sit up himself, reading "My Beautiful Lady," which Adnenne had lent to Edmund, never suijposmg that Myles would loook at it, or that he would take any interest in it if he did. But he pored over it, and his heart strings trembled to the poet's notes ; it was he himself, his own. thoughts put into poetry, as the lover waited lady's coining. And as for the end, Myles read it differently; to please himself, he allowed common sense to step in—Adrienne was not consumptive. (To be continued.) ..' ~ ,

FASHION HINTS.

' Childoen'a dresses aye again cut -witk low neck and short sleeves. ; ; .•■ The taste for striped skirts has again brought bed-licking into use for this pur pose. A sudden caprice is the use of skirts made of gay striped cottous of which awing for windows and doors are made. Very simple jewelry is worn with summer dresses, and the absence of all jewelry is. far more distinguished looking than the use of too much.- A circlet of plain gold, fastened with som pretty device, encircles the throat, of some of the most fashionable London women at the moment. A novelty in dress fastening is a series of mother-of-pearl rings attached to_ each side of the bodice in front with a lacing cord passed through so as to close, them, Crape is no longer sacred to ■ mourning. A new gown is called the "serious," and is of crape made up over cloth, and the sleeves alone being left unlived. The square open-; ing at the throat is filled.with crepe lisse. j It is no longer the fashion in. Paris for young ladies to wear any jewelry at balls; occasionally a row of pearl around the throat, but more generally a simple satin, ribbon—white, blue or pink—which is tied at the back of the neck; No one nowadays says., if desirous of being in the fashion, "Yes, ma'am," or "No, sir." Only to very old persons it may be proper. The phrase ." Madam ?" or " Sir ?" is proper in asking a question when a young person addresses an older. The modern fashion is to say "Yes," or "Up," in an answer to questions. Fans are shown in varied and beautiful styles for the coming season. A novelty that promises to be very popular is the circular floral fan, made of _ net ,and wire, and renovated eack time it is used. ,A_ border of mountain ferns is placed around the edge, and in the centre is_ set a boquet of flowers, corresponding with the floral garniture worn with the costume... ~ ■ Ladies who paint silk, satin or velvet screens,-fans, dresses, ribbons, etc., are notified that,an Italian has invented a pre paration by which all kinds of .stufis may be painted in oil and the painting remain. On silk and satin the colours are as brilliant as enamels, and become changeable like the reflections of the'silk itself. Neither gum nor varnish is to be found in the colors, and they therefore never blacken. ' •' ~ At a children's party recently given by the Baroness Nathaniclde Rothchild, the Duke do Charters' little daughters were present and wore Pompador frocks of ecru foulard,' studded with -rosebuds,, over flounced skirts edged with red. The air was dressed a I'lnfant d'Edrnard, supposed to be an English style, in which the hair is combed over the forehead and cropped in a straight line'just above the eyebrows. • Paul de la Roche once painted some English princesses with their hair thus arranged. Baron James de liothchild's little son was in black velvet knickerbockers with violet silk stockings; his little sister of seven in pink Surah and embroidered white muslin overfrock with pink sash. There' were several sailor boys; the four sons of Countess Oden de Montesquieu were all in sailor suits. If you cannot^ afford to dress Handsomely stick to simplicity. There are few things more pitifully abortive than straining after effect with sham finery, cheap laces, com mon flowers; bogus jewelry, brid all the miserable make-believes which fill the trunks of people who strive to dress beyond.. their means. Sham jewelry will not stand sulphur or iron air; it turns black at once under such an ordeal.. To be plainly dressed is not necessarily to be shabby. To be; loaded with sham finery is. Let what you buy be the best of its kind, your dresses we'll made and well fitting, well put On, your ties and ruffles white and fresh, and ; depend upon it you will always be present able, even though your dresses figure not in . the newspapers, and ■ fortune-hunters pass you by without a second glance. ' .

A country clergyman, who' on' Sundays :.y was more indebted' to his riiajiuscript than ,-v; to his memory, called at a cottage while its ~., possessor, a pious parishoner,- was • engaged.'.', reading the prophecies of Isaiah. " weel, John," familiarly inquired the clerical visi tant, " what's that you are about?" "lain proyhesying," was the prompt reply. " Pro phesying?" exclaimed the astonijsiied divine^ . "I doubt you are only reading a prophecy." ,;, "Weel," urged the religious ■• rustic, "if ■ readin' a sermon be preachinV. is na reading ' a prophecy prophesying ?"...... : OutinDurango, Col., recently; a marriage ; took place and the notice of it in the daily paper said : "Cards." Every person in the whole town brought a pack, and some a couple of them,

STAR SATURDAY SUPPLEMENT, SEPTEMBER 10, 1881

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