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By Mrs. Francis F. Steinthal.
Volume 10, 1899, pg. 87
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My Dear Children,--This is the holiday month, so we will not put on a serious expression and discuss Italy, or paintings, or painters, but will laugh and enjoy ourselves. I think it would interest you to hear of living whist, which fifty-two children will do here this week for the church schools. We have all enjoyed rehearsals, and I will tell you how we play it. Four heralds, in red coats and ermine, head the procession blowing trumpets. Then come the little twos of clubs, hearts, diamonds and spades, then the threes and so on to the knaves, queens and kings. All the girls are the red cards and also the four aces, and the boys are black. The procession marches down the ground, and divides at the bottom and goes up each side in twos. At the top they meet again and at once separate, each side doing a wave in and out until they meet at the bottom and go up in fours up the left side. Again separate at the top and come down each side in the form of an eight, and when at the top, stand in a semi-circle round the throne on which thee kings and queens will then sit. A minuette is then danced by four couples, I ought to have told you that the whole time the cards do a pas-de-quatre step to a Barn-door tune, one, two, three, hop on and so on, and everybody must keep time and step. The smallest children are the lowest cards, and they mount in size until the kings come, the tallest of all. After the minuette has been danced, the heralds blow their trumpets and there is a shuffle. Everybody goes to the centre, and while dancing the step, can go here and there as they please. At a second blast of the trumpets they form a spiral in which each card has to take its right place. The queen of hearts stands in the centre and all join hands, with their faces out, and slowly wind round. The heralds stand at their respective corners, and as each card faces his corner, it breaks off from the spiral and dances into it. When there the cards arrange themselves in order, clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds. Then comes the game. The heralds call out to the cards, who dance to the centre. The three bow to the card that takes the trick and the winner dances followed by the others to his side. The last trick is taken by the queen of hearts. The trumpets are blown, and all the cards form a procession again and dance round to form a heart. The queens stand at the bend and all join hands, the little twos being at the point at the bottom of the ground. After standing three minutes, the heralds blow, and the procession forms in twos and all march round the ground and into their tents, and so ends the game. The cards are dressed like sandwich men, with marked cards in front on white calico with red borders, and the back made with wallpaper and red binding behind. Red rosettes join them on the shoulders. Red cotton hats, the shape of the knaves' hats, and white braid borders are worn both by girls and boys. The aces wear longer cards and Punchinello hats with spade or diamonds, etc., in front, and white dresses striped with black or red. The girl cards all wear white dresses, red stockings, shoes and mittens, and the boys black knickers and red jackets. The queens wear white muslin dresses studded with hearts or spades, etc., the red queens carrying red trains edged with ermine (white flannelette painted) and crowns. The black queens wear white trains bordered with ermine. The attendants wear long dresses and short waists and little Dutch bonnets.
The living whist will prove a great attraction at the bazaar and will be played in the open air on a ground sixty feet long. If any children would like to get one up for any charity they are interested in, I should always be ready to help with further advice. It would be a great help to get the spiral in right order and also the game, so that it works out well.
I have had so many letters from artists and parents, expressing so much regret that the drawings were not to be returned, that my hard heart has quite relented and I am ready to go down on my knees and apologize for so cruel a suggestion. So after a few sleepless nights I have decided to send round in each portfolio the last one returned, in a separate paper, so that each child can take out her own and keep it. I do hope that nobody will get confused and withdraw their last drawing that has not been round; but my children, I know, are much more careful than the ordinary children out in the world, and I do not expect such a mistake will ever be made.
This month there will be no subjects given, as I keep this August portfolio until September to save your pennies, as it means double postage to so many in the holidays.
So hip! hip! hurrah! for the holidays--and three cheers! Your loving,
Aunt Mai.
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Competitions.
All competitions are open to the children of readers of the Parents' Review.
Rule I.--A fee of 1$. entitles a child to work in any competition.
Rule II.--All work and drawings to be sent to Aunt Mai, Wharfemead, Ilkley, before the 30th.
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Little Workers' Society.
Founder: Mrs. Edmund Strode.
Each member makes two garments a year for a child known to the worker.
Marks are given for sewing, neatness and button-holes. Some of the workers seem to have far fewer marks than others; but in each case it is because no button-hole has been made, and the judge considers that every rightly brought-up girl should know how to make very good button-holes.
13 years of age.--Effie Brawn (30), Margaret Buxton (30), Irene Robins (20), Agatha Tibbitts (20).
12 years of age.--Ruth Layard (30), Dorothy Butcher (30), Rose Alice Larken (29), Robie Broadmead (29), Hilda Bowyer (28).
11 years of age.--Averil Paget (30), Rosamund Buxton (30), Mary Naish (27), Vera Broadmead (19).
9 years of age.--Marion Powell (29), Marjorie Tremlett (20), Dorothy Brooks (18).
7 years of age.--Josephine Hickson (29).
6 years of age.--Molly Broadmead (18).
In November make a knitted jersey for a boy (see Parents' Review, April, 1899).
Workers under ten make a comforter and muff (see Parents' Review, March, 1899).
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Order of Chivalry.
Miss E. Wyvill is not at Denton, Ben Rhydding, Yorkshire, and would be so glad if several more nieces would write and ask her what it means to be a Santa Claus. In August four are going to have a Garden Sale of Work, and try to make about £5, to help them to send their children into the country this summer for a wee or a fortnight. In holidays it is good for all to remember to give pleasure to others who do not get such delightful times at the sea-side, and who do not get such long holidays.
Art Club.
Rule I.--No drawing must exceed 12 by 12.
" II.--Drawings must be sent flat.
" III.--All work must be original.
Work for September:--
I. Paint the view you like best when away from home.
II. Design a sailor collar and cuffs for embroidery.
III. Juniors send a good design for square box lid in blobs and curved lines.
The following artists have sent work:--
Stella, Audrey and Naomi Peake, Arnold Callard, Katie and Harry Swan, Marion and Evelyn Thompson, Lilla and Margaret Bagwell, Nella Heath, Dorothy Woods, Evelyn, Sylvia and Marjorie Powys, Margaret Preston, Sylvia and Eileen Smyly, Irene and Maitland Durant, Catherine Cecil, Francis Butt, L. Bonner, Mabel Mathwin, I. Howarth, Gladys Seed, Edith Helme, Violet Dickson, Edith Walker, Christie and Myra Hebbert, Molly and Vera Broadmead, Daisy and Evelyn Weatherell, Mary and Ronald Rees, Josephine, Philippa and Eric Beck Hickson, Margaret Powell, Evelyn and Ruth Waley, Constance Vallence, Jessie and Harold Dickson, Nesta and Denis Perry, Marion Broadmead, Noreen Sim, Dorothy and Nellie Goodwyn, Joyce Thompson, Grace Maitland Heriot, Cicely and Ethel Brooks, Honor Rundle, Basil Leverson, Beryl Durand, Margaret and Winifred Edminson, Dorothy Marriott, Erica Stevenson, Josephine, Dorothy and Octavia Scruby, Cicely Foster, Emily Haslam, Violet Todd, Ruth Edminson, Dorothy, Greta and Kenneth Yeo, Dorothy and Tom Brooks, Sylvia Power, Eldred and Kenneth Reynolds, Edward Haddington, Margery Barbour, Lorna Lawrence and Margery Webb.
Eighty-four artists sent one hundred and twenty-one drawings.
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Our Letter Box.
My Dear Aunt Mai,--We are going away in the holidays to the sea-side, and I should be so glad if some children would tell me how to do several things. I want to dry sea-weed. How can I do this, to keep the colour, and how can I find out what it is called? Robin wants to collect shells. How can he make them stick on to the cardboard? Is it better to keep them loose in little boxes? Can we press flowers and not lose the colour? A gentleman told us to dry them in cotton wool. Do you think this a good plan? This is only a question letter, is it not? Your loving Nephew,
Jack Emslie.
[Children are asked to send answers to Jack's letter, and to write and ask for or to give any information that will interest others.]
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Little Authors.
Dorothy Brooks, Margaret Powell, Vera Broadmead, Frances Petty and Hilda Montgomery have all written on "The Cloud's Quarrel with the Lark."
In September write on "How the Urchins got into the Sea."
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Senior Art Club.
This Club is intended for Aunt Mai's pupils when they leave her at the age of sixteen, but it is open to any readers of the Review, either lady or gentleman. The terms are 6$. for six months. All work marked for exhibition is criticised by Mr. David Murray, A.R.A., on the yearly "Pupils' Show Day," in Miss Stewart Wood's studio, 44, Holland Street, Kensington. All particulars of the Club can be obtained from Miss A. Y. Davidson, Secretary, 41 Bessborough Gardens, London. S.W.
Rule 1.--Work is sent to Miss Stewart Wood, 44, Holland Street, Kensington, by the 23rd of every month, and the portfolio leaves her on the 1st of the month following. Subjects are issued on the 21st of each month, but members may receive subjects for a term in advance on application to the Secretary.
Rule 2.--The name and address of contributor is written on the back of each study, and paper is placed over the face of the principal subject for protection and for the writing of criticism. Secondary subjects are usually numbered and criticised en masse. Oil students are required to use thin French canvas (Young, Gower Street, London, 2$. per yard), to reduce postage. For same purpose no mountings or stretchers are allowed.
Subjects for August.
I. A study of corn in stooks. One or, at most, two in the foreground, then some distant ones, paint the whole mass and try to get the whole tone as it comes against the sky, dark, and again lighter when it nears the earth. Capital still life bits are often to be found near the harvesting--a workman's basket and red handle, a scythe. If the student is not near harvest fields a good landscape illustrating the season will be accepted, but secure the subject given if possible.
II. A sky study. Skies become more settled during this month. Towards evening a beautiful blue green tone getting warmer and darker as it nears the horizon is often visible; it is the approach of the harvest moon which please do not attempt to paint, its round disc appears to such alarming size as to overwhelm the sketch. Try however the same stooks of corn you have painted by daylight and see the alteration in their tone as evening falls.
III. Separate studies of any part of the two subject given may be done in pencil, sepia, or charcoal.
Loan Training Fund Bazaar.
Mrs. Powell, Colchester, has sent a smocked frock for a big child.
Mrs. Herbert Parke, Chorley, sent a table centre, tray cover and blotter.
Miss Blogg, four Armenian mats.
Miss Mulloney (student), pair of slippers, mats, table cover and night-dress case, to the value of one guinea.
A Bazaar will be held in Manchester, in November, to raise £15,000 for the Gentlewoman's Employment Association. Part of this will be given to the Loan Training Fund, which will enable gentlewomen from any part of the country to obtain training for any profession they may wish to enter.
The following notice from their report may interest my readers, and explain why it has been decided to have a special "House of Education" Stall:
"Thirty-two ladies have received help from the Training Fund since its establishment in 1892.
"Eight of these have been trained at the House of Education, at Ambleside, about which a few words of description may be of interest. The House of Education was the outcome of the views of the little group of educational enthusiasts who founded the Parents' Review and the 'Parents' Union,' and was an attempt to put the home teaching of children on a more rational and systematic basis than heretofore. Very wisely, however, it was the training of the teacher that was resolved upon, and this training is so real and thorough, as carried on under the stimulating supervision of Miss Charlotte Mason, in the beautiful house overlooking the lake and mountains at Ambleside, that every girl comes away fired with enthusiasm for her calling, and what is still more important, capable of inspiring the children who may fall to her care.
"It is recognized that book learning is but a small part of the education of the child; every aspect of nature and of life is studied, that the growing mind may be supplied with material suited to it, interest awakened in small things and great, the eye trained to see and the hand to perform, while all the time the individual character is studied and developed.
"The students must have previously received a thoroughly good education, and must be over eighteen years of age. There is a small practice school in the grounds at Ambleside, in which are six or eight children of ages ranging from five to fifteen, the idea being to approximate the teaching to that required in a home schoolroom, where the pupils are of necessity of different ages and calibre.
"That such an Institution is welcomed by parents is obvious from the fact that the students of the House of Education have hitherto never had to wait for an engagement, but are able to undertake unusually well-paid work, immediately after training is completed.
"To return to those who have been trained here by means of the Loan Training Fund. Only one of the seven has required to borrow the whole of the fees (£65 a year for two years), but it is practically certain, that without the help of the Fund, these seven ladies would have been teaching as nursery governesses, at salaries varying from £20 to £25 a year, with the prospect before them of even this modest remuneration being out of their reach as soon as their youth was past.
"Whereas now, they are in receipt of salaries in resident situations ranging from £45 to £125, and are possessed of that special knowledge which is a valuable capital for the whole of their working life. The first girl trained here through the Association received £70 in her first situation, and now gets £125 as a resident governess.
"One has just completed her training, and taken up a post with a salary of £76; one will finish her course this year, and another has only just entered the College. All the others have repaid their loans under the time allotted, and there is every reason to hope that these also will be able to do the same with equal facility."
Postal Orders or gifts of work will be gratefully received by the president at the stall, Mrs. Francis Steinthal, Wharfemead, Ilkley.
Aunt Mai's Budget.
By Mrs. Francis F. Steinthal.
My Dear Children,--I was so sorry last month to be obliged to take out half my "Budget" after it had gone to the printer, so that the Conference papers could be finished in the same number. This month you will find the "Letter Box" very full, and I hope you will all write and ask questions, or answer them in the future.
It will interest you to hear that the performance of the Living Whist was a great success. We made £50, after paying all expenses, which was a most satisfactory result, and fully repaid us for our hard work. I wonder if many of you saw the players in The Sketch of July 26th?
Next month we will again talk about old painters and their pictures. You are still enjoying every moment of this lovely summer, and, like all sensible people, would rather study and learn from Nature than from books.
Your loving,
Aunt Mai.
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Competitions.
All competitions are open to the children of readers of the Parents' Review.
Rule I.--A fee of 1$. entitles a child to work in any competition.
Rule II.--All work and drawings to be sent to Aunt Mai, Wharfemead, Ilkley, before the 30th.
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Little Workers' Society.
Founder: Mrs. Edmund Strode.
Each member makes two garments a year for a child known to the worker.
In November make a knitted jersey for a boy (see Parents' Review, April, 1899).
Workers under ten make a comforter and muff (see Parents' Review, March, 1899).
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Our Letter Box.
(Writers are requested to write only on one side of the paper).
Dear Auntie Mai,--Last Easter we got some frog spawn and put it with some pond water in a bell glass in a sunny window. The tadpoles soon came out, and quickly got bigger. Then we put in some water forget-me-nots with roots. The tadpoles eat the decaying leaves, which look very much like their own tails. By-and-by their hind legs came, but they did not move them for a day or two. Their front legs came one by one, and their tails did not drop off as some people think they do, but got smaller and smaller until they had quite gone. Some are now turned into frogs. They are smaller and thinner than when they were tadpoles; and we have put some little flat pieces of wood for them to get on to, or they might drown, as frogs are not in the water all the time.
Your loving niece,
Eldrid Reynolds (aged 10).
My Dear Aunt Mai,--I was greatly interested in Dorothy Lovell's letter about tadpoles' food, as I caught some this spring. I found out that at first they live on the water-weeds, which grow on the bottom of the stream they live in, and on the tiny seeds and insects they find in the water; but when they are a few weeks old, they also eat larger insects; and sometimes when one of them gets bigger than the others, they join together and kill and eat it. When they become full-sized frogs their food consists almost entirely of insects.
I once heard a funny tale of a frog which a gentleman had often seen in his field. It had noticed that some food, which had been put in the field for the gentleman's chickens, attracted a great many flies; so it rolled itself in it till it almost looked like a ball of food; then it kept quite still till a fly came near it, then it darted out its long tongue and the unlucky fly disappeared down its throat.
I have hard that frogs are short-sighted, and that if you move a bit of stick before one, it will dart its tongue out at it, thinking it is a fly.
I am, yours truly,
George M. Meyer.
Dear Aunt Mai,--I think I can tell Dorothy Lovell how to keep tadpoles. I got them when they were quite little things--just a head and tail. I had them for about a fortnight in this condition, and then two hind legs began to appear at the back of the head. For another fortnight they were like this. One morning I saw a difference in one of them: the body got thinner, and it stayed like this for about three hours, and then one fore leg came; in the evening the other leg came, and the tail began to disappear. The best thing to keep your tadpoles in is a globe with some water plants in it. Change the water now and then. The tadpoles eat the plants you have in the globe, and that is all they need. I did try giving them little crumbs of cold chicken, which they liked very much, and it did not seem to do them any harm. I might also say that a few stones or large shells in the bottom of the globe makes it more home-like for the tadpoles.
I am, yours truly,
A. D. S. Barr.
Dear Aunt Mai,--I am keeping sea-anemones this summer in a glass bowl with sea water. They are red, like bits of jelly when they are closed, but when they are open they have a great many tentacles that wave about in the water. They eat flies sometimes. When they can, they catch the fly in their tentacles and put it into their inside with them. They have no proper mouths. They eat little fishes, too, when they can catch them. We often change the sea water they are in and bring up some fresh sea-weed from the shores for them. I have two cowries and a limpet in the bowl with the anemones. Some of the anemones are sticking on stones and some are sticking to the glass.
Your loving nephew,
Graham B. Jardine (aged 7 1/2).
Tadpoles Ten.
A family of tadpoles were going for a swim,
And Chappie had a bottle filled with water to the brim;
Right cleverly he caught them and carried them away:
"Good-bye, dear Leg of Mutton Pond, I'll come another day."
All the way he carried them down the Frognal hill,
They wriggled and they jiggled and they never could keep still.
He spilled a little water upon the nursery floor,
And he wriggled and he jiggled just like twenty tadpoles more.
But the tiny tadpoles languished for the Leg of Mutton Pond,
And all the water-weeds therein of which they were so fond;
And when the boykin jumped next day from out of his little bed,
He found to his extreme dismay his tadpoles then were dead!
A funeral! a funeral! put on your black dress, nurse!
A match-box for a coffin, a wheel-barrow for a hearse,
Then quietly he carried them--no wriggling any more--
Down the long staircase, through the hall, out the garden door.
"Have the tadpoles gone to heaven, yet?" he whispered to his mother.
"Will they see my gold-fish, do you think, and will they know each other
Write on the gravestone with the date--'These little tadpoles ten
Went to the fishes' heaven and they all were taken in.' "
A. E. Maxwell.
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Art Club.
Rule I.--No drawing must exceed 12 by 12.
" II.--Drawings must be sent flat.
" III.--All work must be original.
The February Portfolio has not returned, and many complaints are received of the non-arrival of several portfolios. It is therefore necessary that a fine of 3d. a day if kept over time be enforced. The fines will go to the House of Education stall in Manchester. Aunt Mai implores all mothers and teachers to assist her by carrying out the rules of the Club. Aunt Mai also begs the artists to be very careful to send the portfolio to the next name on the list. Within the last week two have come back, one leaving out seven of the last artists, and the other leaving out fourteen. This carelessness caused each portfolio to be again packed and sent off.
The names of the artists who have sent pictures in July will appear in the October number.
Work for September:--
I. Paint the view you like best when away from home.
II. Design a sailor collar and cuffs for embroidery.
III. Juniors send a good design for square box lid in blobs and curved lines.
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Little Authors.
Lady Dorothy Godolphin Osborne and Margaret Powell have sent tales on "The Autobiography of a Feather."
In September write on "How the Urchins got into the Sea."
Plants in Pots.
(Aunt Mai regrets that, as the first paper could not appear last month, she must now insert the two together, and hopes that the first one will be of more use next year.)
I.
Having been asked to write about the cultivation of plants in pots, I think, as most children like sweet-smelling flowers, we will begin with sweet peas and mignonette, both of which are easily reared. First, buy a small packet of mixed sweet peas and a packet of giant red mignonette, each packet costing one penny. Then get two or three good-sized flower pots, place some pieces of broken earthenware or rough stones in the bottom to form drainage and prevent the earth from falling through. For soil a mixture of ordinary mould with a little leaf mould and silver sand or road grit. Fill the pots to about an inch from the brim; press the earth slightly, then sprinkle the seeds; over the surface a thin layer of soil, press firmly, and water well with rain water if possible. Place the pots where only the morning and evening sunshine falls on them, the full noontide heat would soon scorch the tiny leaves. There should not be more than a dozen sweet pea seeds in a pot. Water lightly with a fine-rosed watering pot every fourth evening unless rain falls, in which case it will not be necessary to water at all. When the seeds come up at first they may require to be sheltered from the bright sunshine. A cabbage leaf, rhubarb leaf, or a piece of cardboard make excellent screens. A piece of glass laid on the flower pot helps to start the seeds, but do not leave it on after the leaves appear. The sweet peas should show in a fortnight, mignonette rather later.
II.
The sweet peas and mignonette sown a month ago should be well up by this time. Sweet peas are climbers; so a little framework of sticks and string may be made for them if out of doors; but, again, they do well hanging down from a bracket or basket in the corner of a room. They require frequent watering, whenever the soil feels dry.
Mignonette will scarcely be high enough to transplant, but keep it well watered, and prick out six or eight tiny plants into a larger pot for winter flowering.
Musk is easily grown and very sweet-scented. A root that you can buy for 1d. will with care last for years, as it shoots up at every joint, and, even though it dies down in winter, will shoot up as fresh as ever in spring. Water daily till frost comes.
You may have slips or cuttings of geraniums, fuschias or marguerites given you by friends, and can strike them yourself. Get a good-sized pot or shallow box: fill with good soil, mixed with silver sand. Cut the geranium slant-wise, about the second joint; make a hole about two inches deep with a round pointed stick or your finger, which does as well, cut off the larger leaves, put the cutting in the hole and press soil firmly round it. A six-inch pot will hold about twelve. Water very seldom. Next month they will be ready to move. Try to get cuttings of the sweet-scented geranium--oak-leaved geranium it is sometimes called.
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The Insects' Hospital.
Moira was a lonely little girl as she wandered discontentedly in the large gardens of the Hotel de l'Europe at San Remo. Mother was nursing Jack who had not been well for some days, and there were no children to play with, and Moira longed for the swing at home, and the two babies who were always ready for a romp. At last she turned down a narrow walk, and at the end of it found a large fountain lazily playing in the bright sunshine, and making diamonds on the water lying in the large basin. Moira's eyes caught some dark objects floating here and there, evidently moved by the gentle splash. As she came to the edge she saw that these were flies, beetles, spiders and all manner of insects which had evidently come to drink and had fallen in the water and lost their lives. Moira dipped in one little fat hand and brought out three beetles looking very limp and dead. As the water ran out of her hand she thought she felt one move, and when she looked she saw two little eyes wave helplessly to and fro.
"I'll play hospital," she cried aloud, and after carefully laying the three invalids on the edge of the basin, she ran and fetched some large chestnut and nasturtium leaves. The largest leaves were put in rows on the ground under a beech tree, and there, carefully and patiently, Moira walked backwards and forwards between the fountain and the beds, each time carrying an insect and placing it carefully on its couch. She placed the stalk of each nasturtium leaf in the ground so that over each bed was an umbrella, as she thought the light might be too strong for their weak eyes. When all the beds were full she remembered that mother gave Jack some scent on his handkerchief to make him get better. So she fetched two of the biggest roses she could find and put one on each side. Presently, one great beetle--after waving his eyes about as if to say, "Thank-you, Moira,"--crawled off his bed and soon disappeared. One ant made Moira very anxious; she thought he must be quite dead, he was so still, so she brought a rose petal close to him, and fanned him with a rose leaf, and to her delight he also got on his legs after a few minutes and ran off to his family.
A beautiful butterfly in a yellow and brown dress looked very faint and ill, and Moira thought the rose leaf did not suit her, so she ran away and brought back a beautiful pansy and laid the butterfly on its velvet cover. Presently the eyes opened, and the wings quivered, and in another moment the butterfly was flying over Moira's head as if blessing her for its life, and then flew out into the garden and was lost.
One little fly was too ill to recover, so Moira folded him in pink rose leaves and laid him at the root of the beech tree. When her mother came out to see what her little girl was doing, she found her nursing sixteen sick people, and Moira told her she had saved eight lives in one morning. Mother of course kissed the little nurse, and took her in to tell Jack all about the hospital. When Moira when to bed that evening she could not go to sleep for wondering where all her patients were and how many invalids would be left the next morning on their beds. Suddenly she heard a tap on the window-pane, and being a very brave girl she jumped out of bed and opened the window. On the sill outside she saw a spider, an ant and a butterfly, who at once saluted her.
"Princess Moira, we are your devoted subjects. You have given us our lives again, and we are now at your service. We can each teach you one lesson which will make your life a noble one."
They paused, and the Spider spoke in a deep voice, "I can take you into the Kingdom of Patience."
"And I," said the Ant, "into the Kingdom of Industry."
"And I," said the Butterfly's silvery voice, "into the Kingdom of Love,"
Moira's eyes danced with delight. "May I really come?" she said. "May I ask mother if she will allow me?"
"Every mother would like her child to have the same chance," said the Spider slowly, "but as you are a good girl you can read this note from your mother, in which she gives you permission." He drew something from between his feet, and Moira saw in gold letters that shone in the moon-light, "The Spider, the Ant, and the Butterfly have my permission to take my little Moira into their wonderful kingdoms. (Signed) Mother."
"Oh, yes, that is mother's hand-writing," cried Moira, and she clapped her hands with joy. "May I come at once? But how can I travel?"
"We have brought you a neck-lace, made of the rose-leaves you plucked for us this afternoon. Put it round your neck, and you will grow smaller."
Moira did as she was told, and presently she found the window-sill looked as long as Westminster Abbey, and that she could only just see over the Spider's round back.
"Oh dear," she gasped, "that was very sudden! All my breath's gone."
"You will soon feel all right. For my part I think it is a pity human beings take up so much room in the world," drawled the Spider, "I have no parlour large enough for them."
Moira tried to remember a piece of poetry she had once learnt about a spider and his parlour, but her memory had shrunk and was so small that she could scarcely remember one line. But as she was a very polite child, she said--
"Oh, I've heard that you've the prettiest parlour in the world. Do take me to see it now. I'm quite sure I can get into it, and I won't break any of the ornaments.
The Spider smiled. "Some day you shall visit me, but now I am going to take you to see the King of the Land of Patience. His name is Robert Bruce."
"Why, mother knows him," cried Moira, much surprised.
"She told Jack and me all about him last night after tea. Will he really talk to me?"
"Come and see," said the Spider, who never wasted many words. "Jump on my back, and I'll glue you on so that you are quite safe."
Moira obeyed, and soon felt a sticky blanket thrown over her.
"One, two, I and you!" called out the Spider, and Moira saw that he was actually running down the walls of the hotel, and yet she felt perfectly safe and secure.
(To be continued.)
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Senior Art Club.
This Club is intended for Aunt Mai's pupils when they leave her at the age of sixteen, but it is open to any readers of the Review, either lady or gentleman. The terms are 6$. for six months. All work marked for exhibition is criticised by Mr. David Murray, A.R.A., on the yearly "Pupils' Show Day," in Miss Stewart Wood's studio, 44, Holland Street, Kensington. All particulars of the Club can be obtained from Miss A. Y. Davidson, Secretary, 41 Bessborough Gardens, London. S.W.
Rule 1.--Work is sent to Miss Stewart Wood, 44, Holland Street, Kensington, by the 23rd of every month, and the portfolio leaves her on the 1st of the month following. Subjects are issued on the 21st of each month, but members may receive subjects for a term in advance on application to the Secretary.
Rule 2.--The name and address of contributor is written on the back of each study, and paper is placed over the face of the principal subject for protection and for the writing of criticism. Secondary subjects are usually numbered and criticised en masse. Oil students are required to use thin French canvas (Young, Gower Street, London, 2$. per yard), to reduce postage. For same purpose no mountings or stretchers are allowed.
Rule 3.--All work marked "for exhibition" is shown to Mr. David Murray, A.R.A., at the end of the winter term: Miss E. S. Wood write his criticisms, and occasionally a letter of her own advice to the students, and lends them examples of good work. Studies are returned in June, or if a member especially wishes, in December also.
Rule 4.--All dues to be paid between the 20th and 26th of month preceding a new term, by those who wish to join for six months. Members may join for a month on payment of 1$. per month, but have only one subject criticised. Summer: May-October; Winter: November-April. Subscription, 6$, per term. Fines: 6d. for failure to send in principal subject; 6d. for sending in work late; 1$. for keeping portfolio more than a night (unless Sunday intervenes); 1$. for damaging or failing to return, within a specified time, books, casts, &c., borrowed from the critic or other members. Fines, and any extra donations, go to defray heavy postal expenses of Critic and Secretary. All complaints, suggestions, and payments sent to the latter, 41, Bessborough Gardens, London, S.W.
Subjects for September.
I. A stubble field. There is a great charm to be found in this most frequent sight during September, and great differences may be observed in colour and tone according to the point of view chosen. In some aspects the delicate wisps of straw look almost silvery seen against the dark tone of the ground, often they have a greenish appearance, or when they are lighted up by the reflection of the setting sun the little points glow with colour. Try in any case to give the exact tone of the light straw, and choose as background to your field some distant line of hedge or little trees.
II. "The Plighted Clouds." When one looks at the sky covered, as it often is, with separate clouds forming five or six ranks from zenith to horizon, one feels the truth of Milton's line, "The Plighted Clouds." Ruskin counted 9,000 separate clouds in each rank; it is possible to draw each individual cloud, but the direction of the whole must be given. Sometimes as many as three distinct rows, then a strip of sky, then two or three rows running together. Paint a light tone first of all, then divide the masses by the blue for your sky, then break up the smaller divisions, adding the higher lights of the clouds to model them.
III. Separate studies of the two subjects given may be done in pencil, sepia or charcoal.
Loan Training Fund Bazaar.
Miss Evelyn Flower has sent a table-cloth and two sets of mats, value 27$.
Miss Wallace, baskets of the value of one guinea.
A Bazaar will be held in Manchester, in November, to raise £15,000 for the Gentlewoman's Employment Association. Part of this will be given to the Loan Training Fund, which will enable gentlewomen from any part of the country to obtain training for any profession they may wish to enter.
The following notice from their report may interest my readers, and explain why it has been decided to have a special "House of Education" Stall:
"Thirty-two ladies have received help from the Training Fund since its establishment in 1892.
"Eight of these have been trained at the House of Education, at Ambleside, about which a few words of description may be of interest. The House of Education was the outcome of the views of the little group of educational enthusiasts who founded the Parents' Review and the 'Parents' Union,' and was an attempt to put the home teaching of children on a more rational and systematic basis than heretofore. Very wisely, however, it was the training of the teacher that was resolved upon, and this training is so real and thorough, as carried on under the stimulating supervision of Miss Charlotte Mason, in the beautiful house overlooking the lake and mountains at Ambleside, that every girl comes away fired with enthusiasm for her calling, and what is still more important, capable of inspiring the children who may fall to her care.
"It is recognized that book learning is but a small part of the education of the child; every aspect of nature and of life is studied, that the growing mind may be supplied with material suited to it, interest awakened in small things and great, the eye trained to see and the hand to perform, while all the time the individual character is studied and developed.
"The students must have previously received a thoroughly good education, and must be over eighteen years of age. There is a small practice school in the grounds at Ambleside, in which are six or eight children of ages ranging from five to fifteen, the idea being to approximate the teaching to that required in a home schoolroom, where the pupils are of necessity of different ages and calibre.
"That such an Institution is welcomed by parents is obvious from the fact that the students of the House of Education have hitherto never had to wait for an engagement, but are able to undertake unusually well-paid work, immediately after training is completed.
"To return to those who have been trained here by means of the Loan Training Fund. Only one of the seven has required to borrow the whole of the fees (£65 a year for two years), but it is practically certain, that without the help of the Fund, these seven ladies would have been teaching as nursery governesses, at salaries varying from £20 to £25 a year, with the prospect before them of even this modest remuneration being out of their reach as soon as their youth was past.
"Whereas now, they are in receipt of salaries in resident situations ranging from £45 to £125, and are possessed of that special knowledge which is a valuable capital for the whole of their working life. The first girl trained here through the Association received £70 in her first situation, and now gets £125 as a resident governess.
"One has just completed her training, and taken up a post with a salary of £76; one will finish her course this year, and another has only just entered the College. All the others have repaid their loans under the time allotted, and there is every reason to hope that these also will be able to do the same with equal facility."
Postal Orders or gifts of work will be gratefully received by the president at the stall, Mrs. Francis Steinthal, Wharfemead, Ilkley.
Proofread July 2011, LNL
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