The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 9 February 1911, Page 261

The Family Circle

THE TWILIGHT GRAY AND DIM His little eyes look into mine, Those blue, blue eyes that softly shine; His snowy chubby arras I feel Around my neck caressing steal; As dulcet, music to my ear' His lisping baby voice I hear; Upon my breast his head he lays, Into those eyes I fondly gaze, I kiss the lips that scarce can talk, The tiny feet that just can walk, And as I sit and fondle him, There in the twilight grey and dim. I pray that God may guide aright His pretty feet of pink and white; That he may keep his dimpled hands Free, ever free, from passion's bands; His rosebud lips keep all secure From utterance of aught impure; Forbid his eyes to ever see, His ears to hear too willingly, In all his years a single thing That to my cheek the blush would bring; God grant my boy a liberal mind, A noble heart, brave, true, and kind. Were it Thy will I'd doubly bear Of care and pain, dear Lord, his share. These eyes of mine would burn and ache, This heart of mine yearn, yearn and break, That his bright eyes might miss the tears, His gentle heart escape the fears; These hands of mine would labor know, These feet of mine all errands go, That his wee hands be kept from soil, His tender feet from thorn and toil. Ah, Christ, you understand, I know— Your own sweet Mother loved you so!

AN ANONYMOUS LETTER _ Francis Creighton sat sipping a cup of coffee in a retired corner of a respectable restaurant, not far from the fashionable quarter of London. A table near was occupied by a couple of young men ; and, as Francis sipped his coffee and read the news of the day, scraps of their conversation reached his ears. Suddenly a gleam of interest flashed in his eyes, and, though he continued to glance at the paper, his whole attention was given to the talk of his neighbors. ' Yes,' ono of them said, ' I saw Jack Travers to-day. He is one of the two young men selected as being likely to suit old Mr. Well borough, for secretary.' ' Wellborough, the big mill-owner ?'" the second man asked.. ' Travers will fall on his feet if he gets the job. Wellborough's a millionaire.' ' Yes, and a millionaire of a good type. I wish Jack may get the post; but I'm afraid he won't if Wellborough hears his story.' ' What story ? I didn't know Travers had one. Wasn't his mother that nice widow lady who used to live near your place?' ' Mrs. Travers wasn't Jack's mother, though he thought so till the time of her death. His father was an Irishman named Gilmore, who had married an Englishwoman. Gilmore was an engineer, or something of that sort. Well, Mrs. Travers, after her husband's death, went to stay in a place in Ulster called Eossclare, and became acquainted with the Gilmores. During the time of her sojourn in Bossclare, one of those party riots so common in the North of Ireland broke out. Hugh Gilmore in the melee killed a man with one blow. He was arrested, tried for manslaughter, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. He died soon after he was sentenced; and his wife, a delicate woman, never recovered from the shock. Mrs. Travers, in her own sorrow and loneliness, became attached to Mrs. Gilmore and her little baby, and when the former died she took possession of little Jack Gilmore and took him to England with her. She had a sufficient annuity to educate the boy; but it ended with her life. My mother was well acquainted with the story ; Jack himself never suspected he was not Mrs. Travers' son till she was dying. She begged him to keep the name she had given him. He was telling me to-day about the secretaryship. It is worth several .'■ hundred pounds a year. Mr. Wellborough's lawyers interviewed all applicants for the situation in London, and selected two from the number. These two go down to the old gentleman's place in Yorkshire to-morrow, on approval, as it were.' Francis Creighton listened attentively and waited till his neighbors had taken their departure. * ( By jove!' he muttered to himself: 'this is interesting t I fancy the situation is mine. I believe Mr. Well-

borough is thoroughly conservative. He will hardly give the secretaryship to a felon's son. An anonymous letter will bring him the information. I shall get my landlady s son to write a note; my own writing might be recognised. Rather fortunate ; that I lingered so long this afternoon !' • . . ' . " - e> The anonymous letter was despatched to Mr Wellborough that evening, and Francis Creighton journeyed to Yorkshire by an early tram next morning. At the station nearest to Mr. YV ellborough s place a carriage was in waiting. The coachman explained that his master expected two gentlemen, and after a few moments Jack TraversT appeared. . The "young men greeted each other with some awkwardness and at once took their places in the carriage, and a half-hour brought them to Wellborough Hall. Its owner was waiting for them. ' You must pardon an invalid for asking you to under- J take so lengthy a journey,' Mr. Wellborough said cour- " teously, and partake of luncheon before we proceed to business.' * During the progress of the meal, Francis fancied he detected a shade more attention to himself than to his rival, and his hopes were high as he accompanied Mr. Wellborough to his library. The gentleman seemed to have some hesitation in beginning the conversation, i 'Up till , this morning, Mr. Creighton,'' he said at length, you had the better chance of obtaining the situation Your training and qualifications seemed to fit you tor the post. An anonymous letter, however, has caused me to change my mind.' | Indeed!' Creighton's surprise was genuine. ' It does not concern you, and generally I pay no attention to such letters; but this case is different.' Mr \\ ellborough hesitated a moment. ' When my brother and 1 became joint owners of the Wellborough Mills in Bradford the business was fast going to the bad. Neither of us had any private capital with which to prop it up, and not very much experience. At this period 1 became acquainted with a young Irish engineer named Gilmore. The man had a perfect craze for machinery of all kinds, and he gave me plans by which a great improvement might be made in the looms, Just after doing so he disappeared completely. His plans, after some changes, were found to be quite workable and the new machinery effected a considerable saving both in labor and money. It proved the turning point in my brother's career and in mine also. New mills were bought, the new machinery introduced, and we became wealthy men.'

Mr. Wellborough paused. - 'We tried, and unsuccessfully, to find Gilmore ' he resumed. 'No trace of him could" be found. The anonymous letter I received this morning tells me that the voun" man we have left in the dining-room is the son of Hugh Gilmore, who ended his life in prison for the crime of manslaughter If that be so, he must have the situation, you see, Mr. Creighton. I shall make inquiries, of course, before arriving at a final decision. When Ido so, I shall communicate with you. In the meantime, please accept this cheque tor the inconvenience you have been put to ' The cheque was a liberal one, but Francis Creio-h'ton went back to London cursing his ill-luck. A few weeks later he had a letter from Mr. Wellborough. . ' Young Travers, when I questioned him, told me that Ins father was a Hugh Gilmore, who had died in prison I at once placed the matter in a detective's hands; and I now find that he and the man whose suggestions brought fortune to my brother and me were one and the same person. Gilmore unfortunately struck a man who was a ringleader in some row. All evidence went to show that Gilmore was trying to make peace at the time, though he was afterwards convicted. He had always been impulsive. lam very thankful to the writer of* the anonymous letter, contemptible as such communications generally are I thing Gilmore—or Travers, as you choose to call him—will suit me very well indeed and I hope you will find a situation soon, if you have not already done so.' i it ' \ ont 1 think I shall ever again'send an anonymous letter, Creighton said bitterly, as he tossed the communication into the fire.

HANDWRITING OF AUTHORS _ An interesting study is the handwriting of authors as it indicates to a greater or less degree their personal temperaments. Longfellow wrote a bold, open back-hand, which was the delight of printers. Joaquin Miller wrote such a bad hand that lie often became puzzled over his own work, and the printer" sings the praises of the inventor of the typewriter. Charlotte Bronte's writing seemed to have been traced with a cambric needle, and Thackeray's writing, while marvellously neat and precise, was so small that the best eves were needed to read it. Likewise the writing of Captain Marryat was so microscopic that when he was interrupted in his labors he was obliged to mark the place where he left oft by sticking a pin in the paper. i , Napoleon was worse than illegible, and it is said that his letters from Germany to the Empress Josephine were at first thought to be rough maps of the seat of war i „ i "4? wrote a patient crabbed, 'and oddly emphasised hand. The penmanship of Bryant was aggressive well-

formed, and decidedly pleasing to the eye, while the chirography of Scott, Hunt, Moore, and Gray was smooth and easy to read, but did not express distinct individuality. Byron's handwriting was nothing more than a scrawl. His additions to his proofs frequently exceeded in volume the original copy, and in one of his poems, which contained in the original only four hundred lines, one thousand were added in the proofs. The writing of Dickens was minute, and he had a habit of writing with blue ink on blue paper. Frequent erasures and inter-lineations made his copy a burden to his publishers. ■■ \ GIFTS OF SILENCE For the shy girls who have not the gift of ready speech,, there is the gift of silence to cultivate. There is a beautiful art of silence and there are as many ways of being silent as there are of being talkative. There is the heavy silence of the simply stupid; there is the silence of the bored, depressing in its scornful irresponsiveness. There is the silence of abstraction when you feel that your companion's mind has withdrawn itself, and is following the course of its own preoccupations. The lips drop mechanical syllables, which mean nothing, but may seem to fit the occasion from an acquired habit of speech. There is the sensitive silence of sympathy. The lips are still, but the eyes are alight with a harkening spirit. The subdued gestures are expressive, the rare words spoken are pregnant with understanding. Such silence is often more inspiring, more stimulating, than is the response of the spoken word. ORIGIN OF ATTORNEY In former times in England the freemen of every shire met twice a year under the presidency of the shire reeve or sheriff, and this meeting was called the sheriff's torn. By degrees the. freemen declined giving their personal attendance, and a freeman who did attend carried with him the proxies of such of his friends as could not appear. He who actually went to the sheriff's torn was said, according to the old Saxon, to go 'at the torn,' and hence came the word attorney, which signified one who went to the torn for others, carrying with him a power to act or vote for those who employed him. WHAT HE CAME FOR Here is a North Island story:—A man was walking along a river pier a few days ago, when he saw a boy fall into the water. Naturally the man performed the hero act and helped the boy out. As the lad sat on the bank letting the water drip from him, his rescuer asked : 'How did you come to fall into the water, boy?' 'I didn't come to fall in; I came to fish,' declared the boy. FAMILY FUN Conductors of Sound.— one takes a strong piece of thread about as long as one's two arms, loops the centre around the handle of a silver spoon, and then swings the spoon so that it will strike the sharp edge of a table or shelf, there will be a pleasant singing sound, that is softer or louder as the spoon is brought nearer to or held away from the ear. If the ends of the thread are twisted around the index finger several times, and the finger thrust into the ears while the spoon is struck, the result will be altogether astonishing. Not only can the sound be heard with much greater distinctness, but the waves of air caused by the sound and the swinging of the spoon can be felt in the ear. In this instance it is clear that the thread carries sound better than the air, though air is the medium through which sound usually reaches our ears. A little telephone can be made on. this plan, with a silk thread and a tin roll or cylinder, perhaps a tin can of the size of a lamp chimney as a receiver. One can easily talk with a person twenty to twenty-five yards distant in this way. Water, too, is a good conductor of sound. On moist days, or across a body of water, for instance, church bells can bo heard much further and more plainly than in dry weather. If two stones are struck together under water, the sound can be heard very plainly, and fish will swim away at the faintest surface sound. Solid bodies carry sounds with particular directness. If one lays a watch on a wooden board or an iron bar or pipe, and the ear is then held to the board or the pipe, the ticking con be heard much further than through the air. But if the watch is put upon a porous body, or wrapped in cotton, the sound will be weakened. It is this property of solid bodies to carry sound that led to the invention of the stethoscope, the instrument which physicians use to listen to the sounds of the heart and lungs. The thunder of cannons, the -beat of horses, the march of soldiers, the rush of a train can all be heard at longer distances by placing the ear upon the earth. All these things show that solid and liquid bodies carry sound better than do the air and porous bodies.