Various

“ If you ask six persons what is the good of the nose, five at least will answer "to smell with." Is it likely that an organ so large and exceedingly complex as the nose would only serve the sense of smell—a sense which in man is extremely feeble! No! it has a far more important function to perform, for the nose is the organ through which we breathe. But surely we breathe through our mouths? I am afraid that most of us do, more's the pity! ”

“ Suppose this day is the 1st of November. We are going to-day to a sale of lily bulbs. What lilies shall we get? How shall we choose our bulbs? What price ought we to pay for them? Let us glance through our gardening books and see. What do these books tell us? Nothing whatever! Or rather nothing which is of any value. You will find so little information about lilies in books on gardening, and that little is so full of errors, that it is best to ignore it altogether, except in the case of lilies which are commonly cultivated. And there is no practical book upon lilies alone before the public. ”

“ Those that have nasal obstruction would do well to have that condition seen to at once. For centuries this condition was neglected. It not only interfered with beauty, but it was and is the cause of many serious maladies.
A nose that is bent to one side almost invariably has its origin in a broken nose. Fortunately not every nose that is broken shows its misfortune on the surface. If you would examine the noses of five hundred people, I very much doubt if there would be more than three hundred in whom the nose was not broken. ”

“ It is not always easy to decide what a young and inexperienced girl can do. To help in a Working Girl's Club is suitable and often most interesting; or you might join the local committee of the Children's Country Holidays Fund. The Charity Organisation Society, and the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants, are both societies that can sometimes delegate practical duties to young assistants. In the meantime you should still pursue your general education notwithstanding the fact that your governess is no longer needed. It is education that will make you of service in the world. ”

“ We planted a number of lily bulbs among beds of pinks last year, thinking that this situation would afford all that was required. But, alas! we had forgotten an enemy, of which you will hear more later, which has proved the very worst of our foes—the slugs. Oh, those slugs! We go out on a warm morning in March and see five hundred thick, healthy, green shoots, looking like tender asparagus. We have a slight rain in the night and go out next morning to see how our lilies are faring. During the night the slugs have eaten the tops off all those that were most promising! ”

“ If I can, I shall get him to buy Swallow's Nest."
"Oh, the charming old farm! That's where Miss Harper is living," said his wife. "I am sorry that you must part with it. Yes, I will be very economical, dear. Mr. Cardigan is awfully rich, they say."
Robert Cardigan alighted at the little rural station in rather a gloomy mood. It is a truism that rich men are by no means the most cheerful; and Robert, perhaps, was feeling the embarrassment of wealth.
The squire's dog-cart was waiting, and, as he drove through the autumn lanes, the beauty of the country stole over him like a charm. ”

“ If you go to the seedsman you can buy all your bulbs at once, you can make your choice, and you need buy but one lily of each species. But you will have to pay high, often fancy prices for them, and you can never be sure that the bulbs are fresh. On the other hand, in the auction-room you usually must get a large number of one variety, and you cannot obtain all kinds at the same auction. But you will have but a small price to pay, in fact, only the current market price of the day. ”

“ When a girl gets to be thirteen, a great change should occur in the nose; it should get larger and its cavities become more capacious. It is at this period that the definite shape of the nose is fixed. In the case of the girl we mention her nose has been useless from childhood, and nature will never develop a useless organ. When she was a child she had a small nose on a small face, when she becomes a woman she will have a small nose on a big face. Whatever the size of the nose it should fit the face, and a snub nose, or a thin, or a very small, or a flat nose will be the result. ”

“ We think that we know what is the cause of so many large bulbs going wrong. If the buds of a lily be cut off, the bulb increases enormously in size, and next year sends up a very superior shoot bearing many fine blossoms. Lily growers often cut off the flower buds from their lilies so as to improve the bulbs. These large bulbs are excellent. But the bulbs greatly increase in size if the plant does not flower for a year. Even if the whole plant dies from drought (a very common cause of failure with lilies) , or if the roots are destroyed by vermin or by disease, the bulbs often become enormous. ”

“ At the same time, circumstances may occur to almost anyone to render it most desirable that one should be able to earn money. Try, therefore, within the next few years so to educate and train yourself that, if need arose, you could turn your hand profitably to something. A knowledge of housewifery, for instance, is a splendid possession for any girl and can never prove useless. ”

“ If you have grown to maturity with a malformed nose, can anything be done to lessen its ugliness? Well, here you see the body has finished growing, and one cannot be sure that any benefit will accrue from treatment. But in nearly every case that I have seen, some distinct improvement has occurred in the shape of the nose, after a very long-continued and neglected nasal obstruction has been remedied. ”

“ Like most plants which bear blossoms out of proportion{61} to their leaves, lilies are rather difficult to cultivate. If you merely stick the bulbs in the ground, the chances are that they will either be eaten by slugs or die. Again, not all the one hundred and twenty kinds of lilies want the same treatment. Coming, as they do, from every part of the northern temperate zone of the earth, some from the vast mountains of the Himalayas, others from the plains of India, and others from the woodlands of Japan or the swamps of North America, lilies will not all grow in the same soil or situation. ”

“ How splendid it would be to be able to grow lilies which not one person in a thousand has ever seen! With what pride could we show to our friends a beautiful garden filled with magnificent flowers, not one of which they had ever seen before. What interest will this spirit of adventure lend to an otherwise tame recreation! Yes; lilies are the plants for us. Yes, and we hope that we can instil into the reader an enthusiasm for growing lilies.
Most rare plants are curious rather than beautiful, and nothing palls so much as curiosity alone. But the little known lilies are beautiful ”

“ We said that lily bulbs are very much cheaper at the end of the season than they are in October or November, and some persons might be tempted to put off buying their bulbs till March or April. But this is a great mistake, for very few of such bulbs ever live to flower.
The greatest difficulty in lily culture is to know how to choose the bulbs. There are so many ways in which the unwary may be "done," that many persons give up growing lilies from the constant disappointment which results from their ignorance of how to choose good, sound, flowering bulbs. ”

“ True hearts that turned to her for helpful love; young spirits trusting to her stronger spirit for that uplifting that she could give them. Simple souls, clinging in human fashion to the old walls that had sheltered them so long—must they be driven out to seek a new dwelling at a rich man's will? ”

“ It appears to be an undoubted fact that the living microbe can exist in the living oyster. Some men tried to prove that the organisms only occurred in oysters that were bad; but this was proved to be incorrect. Having decided that oysters can harbour the bacillus, the next question is—"How does the oyster obtain this microbe?" The answer to this is easy. The bacilli can only come from a patient with the disease, and so the oysters must obtain the poison from sewage. As far as we know oysters which are unable to feed on sewage matter cannot possibly obtain the typhoid poison. ”

“ Well, after discussing the various pros and cons of the subject we at length determined upon gardening. But gardening is a very hackneyed subject, and besides, it has too wide a scope. Let us decide to cultivate one family or genus of plants. But which shall it be? Let us think. We do not want to grow vegetables; we want flowers. Shall we say roses? No, we have numbers of roses already, and besides, our country garden is in the most sandy part of Surrey, the very worst soil for many kinds of roses. Well, shall we try lilies? Ah, why not? No one, we know, gives special attention to lilies. ”

“ These engagements, however, do not occupy all a girl's time. We are glad to observe that girls and young married women, occupying the very highest positions in London society, set apart some portion of their time for work of public usefulness. Like yourself, they are not content to lay aside only one-tenth of money that has cost them no effort to obtain (though the subtraction of such an amount for God is obligatory) , but they wish also to do work for others. ”

“ Ada is a type-writer in a very good office in the City. She has got on so well that she is earning £100 a year. Jane is a cookery teacher in a distant parish, and she must start off with her sister, for although her work does not begin so early as Ada's, who is due at her office at nine o'clock, she has a good way to go, and the marketing for her classes to do before she starts work at ten o'clock. The bright-eyed little woman at the head of the table, who is pouring out the coffee, is Marion Thomas. ”

“ I am Esther, the eldest, a year older than you, I think. This is Mellicent, my younger sister, fourteen last February. I think you are about the same age." She paused a moment, and Peggy looked across the table and said, "How do you do, dear?" in an affable, grandmotherly fashion, which left poor Mellicent speechless, and filled the others with delighted amusement. But their own turn was coming. Esther pulled herself together and went on steadily with her introductions. "This is Maxwell, my brother, and these are father's two pupils—Oswald Elliston, and Robert—the Honourable Robert Darcy." ”

“ But next day we read in a gardening paper that lilies cannot be grown in pots, but some will do well in the open border! What are we to believe? Shall we be successful, or are we doomed to disappointment?
We have gone through the year, having grown lilies both in the ground and in pots. Several hundreds were planted in the ground, and one hundred and three (eighty-seven varieties) in pots. Of the latter we have lost four plants. Twenty-two have not flowered but will flower another year; so that we are highly delighted with our success. ”

“ Fairbank, getting unexpectedly choky, and dropping stitches by the bushel, as her eyes fell on the pitiful faces of Polly and Molly—"that 'all the English, from the age of eighteen to sixty'—all—not men only!"
"Nay, nay, nay; it signifies men only, not women. None but savages fight against women," declared the Admiral, with vigour. "They will be right enough, my dear madam. 'Tis only the Colonel and the Captain who are included." ”

“ Letty" went to the door of her husband's dressing-room, just before dinner, and told him that she had made a discovery.
"Well, what have you discovered?" asked he. "Upon my word, I wish it was a pot of gold."
"It's not a pot of gold. It's a former acquaintance under the guise of a dressmaker!" cried Mrs. Monteagle gleefully. "It's Alice Harper, who used to live in Park Lane—Alice Harper, the daughter of that old company man who blew out his brains. Isn't it funny?"
"It doesn't strike me that it's funny when a man blows out his brains," said the squire. ”

“ Nature may be encouraged by kindness, but she can never be overcome by force.
Now let us talk about another condition of the nose, which appears to trouble girls very much. Red noses are decidedly not beautiful. Common enough they are, but in very many cases they can be cured by a few trifling precautions. The commonest cause of red noses in girls is drinking tea; but anything that produces indigestion will cause a red nose: eating too fast ”

“ The disease invariably results from taking food contaminated with sewage. Water is the chief vehicle by which the disease is spread, and therefore during epidemics of typhoid all water that is intended for drinking purposes should be boiled. Milk, watercress, oysters, salads, etc., also convey the disease. Milk is a common method of spreading typhoid, either by the milk being diluted with water, or else the cans having been carelessly washed out. Pure milk, absolutely free from water, cannot convey typhoid. Typhoid fever rarely attacks the same individual twice. ”

“ Animal charcoal of itself will often decolourise potassium permanganate. If this correspondent wishes to test her filter more thoroughly, let her take out the carbon block and place it in a clean jug full of water, to which one or two drops of the permanganate solution has been added so as to make it a very, very pale pink. Having left it an hour or so, let her place a sheet of white paper behind the jug and see if the solution round the carbon block is paler in tint than the rest of the fluid. Even if this test is negative it will not prove that the carbon block is free from germs ”

“ She lives with them, and does the housekeeping of the joint establishment and nearly all the cooking. If it were not for Marion, Ada laughingly tells their friends, it is more than probable that she and Jane, who come back in the evening rather tired and certainly disinclined for housework, would live altogether on tea, eggs, and toast, as some flippant individual once remarked that all women would be sure to do if left entirely to themselves. ”

“ To become a fully-qualified High School teacher would probably entail too much expense, as you ought to obtain a University degree, if later you wish to secure a good salary and promotion. Your handwriting is neat, clear, and good for your age. ”