own at Oxford, in pure lead pencil, on grey paper secured with ink on the outlines, and touched with white on the lights. It is of a stuffed Kingfisher,—(one can't see a live one in England nowadays,) and done at full speed of hand; and it is to be copied for a balance practice to the slow spiral lines. NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. I. Affairs of the Company. I have given leave to two of our Companions to begin work on the twenty acres of ground in Worcestershire, given us by Mr. George Baker, our second donor of land; (it was all my fault that he wasn't the first). The ground is in copsewood; but good for fruit trees; and shall be cleared and brought into bearing as soon as the two Companions can manage it. We shall now see what we are good for, working as backwoodsmen, but in our own England. I am in treaty for more land round our Sheffield museum; and have sent down to it, for a beginning of the mineralogical collection, the agates on which I lectured in February at the London Institution. This lecture I am printing, as fast as I can, for the third number of Deucalion; but I find no scientific persons who care to answer me any single question I ask them about agates; and I have to work all out myself; and little hitches and twitches come, in what one wants to say in print. And the days go. Subscriptions since March 14th to April 16th. I must give names, now; having finally resolved to have no secrets in our Company,-except those which must be eternally secret to certain kinds of persons, who can't understand either our thoughts or ways: March. F. D. Drewitt (tithe of a first earning) Miss M. Guest April. James Burdon (tithe of wages) Wm. B. Graham (gift) . Anonymous (post stamp, Birkenhead) £ s. d. 1 4 1 220 2 10 0 100 1 10 0 £8 6 1 II. Affairs of the Master. March 16. Balance 21. Miss O. Hill, 1 year's rent on Marylebone Free- 28. R. Forsyth (tea-shop). April 7. Dividend on £7000 Bank Stock.... 8. Petty cash (Dividends on small shares in Build- III. I have promised an answer this month to the following pretty little letter; and will try to answer fully, though I must go over ground crossed often enough before. But it is often well to repeat things in other times and words: "16th March, 1876. "Sir,-Being very much interested in the St. George's Society, we venture to write and ask if you will be so kind as to send us the rules, as, even if we could not join it, we should so like to try and keep them. We hope you will excuse our troubling you, but we do not know how else to obtain the rules. We remain, yours truly." My dear children, the rules of St. George's Company are none other than those which at your baptism your godfather and godmother promised to see that you should obey—namely, the rules of conduct given to all His disciples by Christ, so far as, according to your ages, you can understand or practise them. But the Christian religion being now mostly obsolete, (and worse, falsely professed) throughout Europe, your godfather, and godmother, too probably, had no very clear notion of the Devil or his works, when they promised you should renounce them; and St. George hereby sends you a splinter of his lance, in token that you will find extreme difficulty in putting any of Christ's wishes into practice, under the present basilisk power of society. Nevertheless, St. George's first order to you, supposing you were put under his charge, would be that you should always, in whatever you do, endeavour to please Christ; (and He is quite easily pleased if you try;) but in attempting this, you will instantly find yourself likely to displease many of your friends or relations; and St. George's second order to you is that in whatever you do, you consider what is kind and dutiful to them also, and that you hold it for a sure rule that no manner of disobedience to your parents, or of disrespect and presumption * For accounts in London, to save drawing small cheques. I have not room for detail this month, the general correspondence being lengthy. VOL. III.-14 towards your friends, can be pleasing to God. You must therefore be doubly submissive; first in your own will and purpose to the law of Christ; then in the carrying out of your purpose, to the pleasure and orders of the persons whom He has given you for superiors. And you are not to submit to them sullenly, but joyfully and heartily, keeping nevertheless your own purpose clear, so soon as it becomes proper for you to carry it out. Under these conditions, here are a few of St. George's orders for you to begin with: : 1st. Keep absolute calm of temper, under all chances; receiving everything that is provoking and disagreeable to you as coming directly from Christ's hand and the more it is like to provoke you, thank Him for it the more; as a young soldier would his general for trusting him with a hard place to hold on the rampart. And remember, it does not in the least matter what happens to you,-whether a clumsy schoolfellow tears your dress, or a shrewd one laughs at you, or the governess doesn't understand you. The one thing needful is that none of these things should vex you. For your mind is at this time of your youth crystallizing like sugar-candy; and the least jar to it flaws the crystal, and that permanently. 2nd. Say to yourselves every morning, just after your prayers: "Whoso forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple." That is exactly and completely true: meaning that you are to give all you have to Christ to take care of for you. Then if He doesn't take care of it, of course you know it wasn't worth anything. And if He takes anything from you, you know you are better without it. You will not indeed, at your age, have to give up houses, or lands, or boats, or nets; but you may perhaps break your favourite teacup, or lose your favourite thimble, and might be vexed about it, but for this second St. George's precept. 3rd. What, after this surrender, you find entrusted to you, take extreme care of, and make as useful as possible. The greater part of all they have is usually given to grown-up people by Christ, merely that they may give it away again; but schoolgirls, for the most part, are likely to have little more than what is needed for themselves: of which, whether books, dresses, or pretty room furniture, you are to take extreme care, looking on yourself, indeed, practically, as a little housemaid set to keep Christ's books and room in order, and not as yourself the mistress of anything. 4th. Dress as plainly as your parents will allow you: but in bright colours, (if they become you,) and in the best materials, that is to say, in those which will wear longest. When you are really in want of a new dress, buy it, (or make it,) in fashion but never quit an old one merely because it has become unfashionable. And if the fashion be costly, you must not follow it. You may wear broad stripes or narrow, bright colours or dark, short petticoats or long, (in moderation,) as the public wish you, but you must not buy yards of useless stuff to make a knot or a flounce of, nor drag them behind you over the ground. And your walking dress must never touch the ground at all. I have lost much of the faith I once had in the common sense and even in the personal delicacy of the present race of average English women, by seeing how they will allow their dresses to sweep the streets, if it is the fashion to be scavengers. 5th. If you can afford it, get your dresses made by a good dressmaker, with utmost attainable precision and perfection: but let this good dressmaker be a poor person, living in the country; not a rich person living in a large house in London. 'There are no good dressmakers in the country.' No: but there soon will be if you obey St. George's orders, which are very strict indeed, about never buying dresses in London. 'You bought one there, the other day, for your own pet!' Yes; but that was because she was a wild Amorite, who had wild Amorites to please; not a Companion of St. George. 6th. Learn dressmaking yourself, with pains and time; and use a part of every day in needlework, making as pretty dresses as you can for poor people who have not time nor taste to make them nicely for themselves. You are to show them in your own wearing what is most right, and graceful; and to help them to choose what will be prettiest and most becoming in their own station. If they see that you never try to dress above yours, they will not try to dress above theirs. Read the little scene between Miss Somers and Simple Susan, in the draper's shop, in Miss Edgeworth's Parent's Assistant; and by the way, if you have not that book, let it be the next birthday present you ask papa or uncle for. 7th. Never seek for amusement, but be always ready to be amused. The least thing has play in it-the slightest word, wit, when your hands are busy and your heart is free. But if you make the aim of your life amusement, the day will come when all the agonies of a pantomime will not bring you an honest laugh. Play actively and gaily; and cherish, without straining, the natural powers of jest in others and yourselves;-remembering all the while that your hand is every instant on the helm of the ship of your life, and that the Master, on the far shore of Araby the blest, looks for its sail on the horizon,—to its hour. I can't tell you more till next letter. IV. Extract from a letter of one of my own girl-pupils and changes: "What is to be done with town children? Do you remember going with me to see Mrs. G, our old servant? She has died since, and left two children for us to love and care for, for her. The elder, Louie, is thirteen; unusually intelligent and refined; I was helping her last |