The dress was mended; and adjusted on the wearer by Hester's hands. Then Miss Janet stood aloof, and regarded her gentle tirewoman. "You shall come down to dinner with me," she said suddenly, much as she might have said, "You shall have a piece of cake," to a child. "Lady Helen will be quite content if I desire it. I will lend you a pretty gown. I will not have you mewed up here by yourself." Miss Golden in this proposal need not be wondered at too much. Some people who knew her well would not have been surprised to hear her begging of a beggar to take a present of her purse, or ordering her milliner to make her a bonnet out of a rainbow. She had an eye for beauty, and an instinct for breeding. She was a person who knew how to change her mind. She could give a blow and a kiss in the same breath. "Thank you," said Hester," but I have dined." And that was all she said. And this being so, Miss Janet retreated to the door in high amazement. Good night! she said," and thank you for your service." And then looking over her shoulder before she closed the door : “And I hope, young woman," she said, "that you understand your business. If not, you will find little welcome here." Hester had hardly got over the surprise of this first visit when some other knuckles came tapping on her door. The handle was turned again, and the Honourable Madge put in her head. "And 'So you are the dressmaker, my dear?" she said. a very charming young dressmaker, I declare! Thirteen for dinner they said, and I would not go down for the world. And dear Archie just come home, and my cherry tabinet quite wasted!" And she stroked down her dress. "Just what I was at her age!" she said, seizing Hester's hand, and holding her a little off, scanning her up and down with half-closed eyes. "But time will make havoc." And she swayed herself to and fro, lifted her hand to feel that the likeness of her lover was in its place upon her forehead, and looked askance at the fire, with a half-sad, half-bitter little smile. "You will excuse me, my dear, if I poke your fire? And she made a little frisk towards the hearth. "The night is so cold, and you look such a sociable young person!" Hester placed her a chair, and fetched her a footstool, and then, at her bidding, sat facing her by the fender. “What is the news from the world, my dear? she said, dropping her voice and looking cautiously round her. VOL. XXXVI.-No. 416. "They 7 do tell such tales of the times. any newspapers to come in. oyster. He laughs and says, 'I will not let them cut off your head, Cousin Madge.' (The Honourable Madge, my dear, to strangers.) So I said to myself, 'Our new dressmaker will have no scruples about telling me the truth."" But Lady Helen don't allow And Sir Archie is as close as an "I know far less than you do, I am sure," said Hester, fearfully. "I have come straight from London, and I was shut up in a vessel or a coach all the way. In Dublin, at night there was a crowd in the streets. They said some one was being taken to prison. It was terrible, the crowd was so quiet.” "Ah, ah!" said Miss Madge, nodding her head. "better did they shout and roar. And hist! my dear-what is your name? Hester! Excuse the Christian name. It is so much more comfortable between friends. I call myself, Madge, the Honourable Madge. Ah!" "This country is safe, is it not?" ventured Hester. "Safe!" echoed Miss Madge, with a terrible little laugh. "Vesuvius, my dear, must be a nice safe place to live upon till the volcano begins to spout fire. Any night we may be hanged from our bed-posts." Hester shuddered and drew nearer to the cherry tabinet. "Or burned in our beds," said the Honourable Madge. "But that is no reason why we should have our dresses made unfashionably in the meantime. And I came here chiefly to compliment you on your dolls. Poor dolls would be burned too, of course." "But, madam," pleaded Hester, "please pardon me if I ask you, does not Sir Archie Munro discountenance the disturbances ? He does not concern himself with the troubles ?" "Don't he?" cried the Honourable Madge, giving her head a toss, and snapping her fingers. "It may be that he don't. He may or he may not. If I were a man I should, I can tell you, that's all. I would lead out my clan to do battle!" And the Honourable Madge grasped the poker, and made a fierce little flourish with it in the air. "Look in there," she said again, stabbing the fire, and making the red cinders drop about. "Does it not look like rows of houses burning? La, my dear, don't turn so pale. And I wanted so much to speak to you about my new pink silk. Well, I'll bring it you in the morning." And soon after this she pirouetted towards the door, pointed her toes in her long sandalled slippers, kissed hands to Hester, and disappeared. It was a very pale face that was raised in expectation when the third knock fell on Hester's door. "Come in," said Hester, all her weariness and fearfulness in her voice. "Have I come too soon?" asked Mrs. Hazeldean, advancing out of the shadows with two outstretched hands. "I ought to have let you rest. Have I come too soon?" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. But Hester did not announce that she had had two visitors already. She only said "No" in thorough earnest ; finding her fingers covered up in the clasp of two warm hands; letting her eyes take their delight in this new comer's rare face. (To be continued.) ROSA MULHOLLAND GILBERT. TO MY NIECE SWEET little girl, with your eyes of blue, Sweet little girl, I make this rhyme, Sweet little girl, as the decades pass, Sweet little girl, this prayer I pray, R. A. F FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN, S.J., ON THOROUGHNESS SUSPECT I am going to commit an act of piracy, to infringe copyright: for I have studied carefully Mr. H. A. Hinkson's admirable treatise on Literary Copyright, and he tells us what rights a lecturer has with regard to the publication of his lecture. But in the present instance it is unlikely that any action will be taken by the injured party, for he is aware that the delinquent is not a mark for costs. I have kept a fragment of an old newspaper for many yearsbesides other marks of antiquity I notice among the advertisements on the back of my scrap a housemaid, etc., recommended by a lady living then in the north of England, who has lived in the south of England for much more than a lustrum, and whose novels have exchanged the Lancashire dialect for that of Dorsetshire. Well, I kept this newspaper fragment because it contained a lecture on Thoroughness, delivered by Father Vaughan at the fifth Free Concert in the Holy Name Hall, Manchester. It was reported in the third person, but I shall try to transpose the sentences into the first person. I mention these particulars to show that Father Vaughan is not responsible for the form in which his observations are here laid before the reader.-ED. I.M. We all want to travel on the road to prosperity. Thoroughness is the only straight road to success. The old byways of influence, money, and genius, have been for the most part closed up. "No thoroughfare" is written over them, and now people who want to travel on the road to prosperity are directed to keep to the beaten track called thoroughness. "What is the secret of your success?" Sir Joshua Reynolds was one day asked by a rising artist. Thoroughness," was the reply. "I always paint my best." "Do you know what has led me to success in war? asked the great Napoleon in a conversation with his staff. Attention to details," was his answer. There is a time-honoured axiom, "What is worth doing at all is worth doing well." That rule applies to every career and to every action that goes to build it up. Every brick in the building has its right place and right setting, and the perfect adjustment of the whole can result only from the perfect adjustment of its constituent parts. I have heard of a builder in this very city who one day found fault with a brick-setter for setting bricks too close to one another. "Jack," said he, "that work will not suit me; set 'em more free." It is the only work that 'll suit me," said Jack. The bricklayer found himself out of work at the end of the week. Now he and his employer have changed places. To-day Jack is a well-to-do builder, but his former master is looking for a job. Depend upon it, thoroughness in the long run makes its mark, and pays a good dividend. It was a deplorable pity that that grand principle is not more generally insisted on, and driven home. If every child was made to realize it at school and at home, there would not be so many to say late in life: “Honesty is the best policy, and I have tried both." Unfortunately it is a notorious fact that not only is mahogany thinly veneered, and cruet-stands lightly plated; not only are the large figs on the top layer of the box, and the big strawberries on the surface of the pottle, but fine professions of honesty are too often found only on the tip of the lips. Yes; after all the poet was right: "Things are not what they seem." There are shirt-fronts that will not wash, cotton-prints that will not hold colour, patent leathers that crack, umbrellas that gape, and watches that only go for a little while after you get them. But what is worse than all that, there are whole tribes of people who unite in their own persons all these faults, and then are surprised they do not " get on." The truth is that when experience teaches buyers there is more slack than cobs in their coal, more paper than leather in their soles, more shoddy than cloth in their coats, they usually change their coal merchant, bootmaker, or tailor, as the case may be. And so, when practice is not on a level with profession, confidence is withdrawn, and with confidence goes custom. When shopkeepers are discovered selling margarine for butter, or the ancient lays of Limerick for new-laid eggs, they are heavily fined, and it would be very serviceable to the public if that system of fining could be extended not only to the false labelling of perishable goods, but of perishable work sold to the public. It is said of plumbers, in a certain portion of the globe not to be named, that they never do one job without making another. That, no doubt, shows a fine spirit of work, but it is not a practice that should be resorted to without the entire approval of the party who has to pay for it. There is a feeling against payment for unnecessary work, and the public generally do not like "to be done," unless at a Bazaar. What is really appreciated by all classes of the community is having some security that they are getting what they pay for. If they pay for a thoroughly good article, or thoroughly good work, they expect and want their money's worth. That is a rule which knows of no excep |