Vol. VIII.—No. 356.OCTOBER 23, 1886.Price One Penny.

[Transcriber's Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

[A DREAM OF QUEEN'S GARDENS: Part 2.]
[HINTS ON MODELLING IN CLAY.]
[LOVE ON, LOVE EVER.]
[DRESS: IN SEASON AND IN REASON.]
[THE SHEPHERD'S FAIRY: Chapter 4.]
[A PRINCESS WHO LIVED TWO LIVES.]
[VARIETIES.]
[MERLE'S CRUSADE: Chapter 4.]
[ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.]

A DREAM OF QUEEN'S GARDENS.[1]
A STORY FOR GIRLS.—IN TWO PARTS.
By DANIEL DORMER, Author of "Out of the Mists."

PART II.
A QUEEN'S DREAM.

"LILACS AND LABURNUM TREES BLOOM ABUNDANTLY AROUND."

Yet the recollection of that book is helping to soften Hazel. There is a tender bit of writing at the close of the lecture which can hardly fail to reach any woman's heart, unless it be wholly hardened; and Hazel's is not a hard heart. So she muses on it, growing gradually calmer and happier. After all, she might be of some use in the world if she were to try, and if One Divine would be with her.

She stoops down to throw some coal on the fire. She is too much exhausted physically to make it up carefully; but with an effort piles on large blocks and small indiscriminately, then throws in a handful of matches from a box within reach. What strange chaos there seems to be in the grate after a little while! One after another the matches go off with a phiz and short-lived flare, and each seems to light up a more curious scene than the last. From being mere piled-up blocks of coal in a grate, they grow to be a half blocked up entrance to some unknown place. There is a large shining black portal, half ruined, surrounded with débris. By degrees Hazel's languid curiosity is excited, and she wonders whither it leads. Why should she not explore?... The next match which takes fire lights up the slight form leaning far back in the big chair, with the soft, golden brown hair half loosened, and the dark, shadowed eyes fast closed. And Hazel has passed through the dark gateway, and is in a wonderful world.

What a strange black gateway to have led into so fair a garden! Hazel pauses at the entrance, her eyes glistening, her breath taken away with delight at the beauty of the scene before her. A paradise of fresh green shade and exquisite light and colouring. Wide-spreading chestnuts, graceful, feathery birches, and a hundred other trees, clothed and robed in their tender young leaves, mingle with a glory of pink and white spring blossom, which seems to fill the air like a snowstorm in the clear, blue sky. The South wind blows and fans Hazel's cheek, and wafts delicious breath of flowers and sweet-brier around her. Beneath the shower of snowy blossom stretches smooth, green grass, and masses of brilliant flowers glow, expanding their petals up towards the sun.

After a while Hazel wanders forward in a dreamy intoxication of delight, every moment discovering fresh beauties. She finds a beautiful grotto, where are large rocks and cascades and running streams and fountains. She enters by a low archway of stone, covered with drooping ferns, and there, right before her, is a large clear pool at the foot of a huge rock. She flushes with the prettiest of shy pleasure and frank admiration at sight of her own reflection.

How beautiful! A girl in a long, white robe, with a sweet, dark-eyed face, which she knows to be her own. She is leaning slightly forward, and the eyes—so often heavy and weary—are brimming with happiness, the lips parted in a smile. Her hair, with its pretty, sunny ripples, is unbound, and the wind blows it slightly back from her shoulders. And, most wonderful and striking of all, a circlet of pure gold rests upon the shapely head, and a second circlet is clasped round the waist. Then she is a queen? No doubt of it. And then comes, to the joy of admiration of all she has seen, the added joy of certainty that all is her own. This is a queen's garden, and she is the happy queen!

More and more dawns gradually upon her. There are those near at hand dear to her, to whom she is also dear, whose queen she is. Oh the joy of it all! She clasps her hands in ecstasy, and the pretty reflection in the pool is more than ever lovely, only she has forgotten it now.

A serious thought must have come into Hazel's mind, for suddenly a different expression appears in her eyes; a look of perplexity and shade of sorrow. The consciousness in her new life is growing, and, alas! it is not unmixed with pain. This garden is not all the world, then? She puts her hand to her brow, trying to recall something. Slowly it comes back to her in words, noble words, spoken by one whose face is a darkness to her. And she listens—

"It is you queens only who can feel the depths of pain, and conceive the way to its healing."

Ah! that is enough. She has lost her desire to recall more. She would fain turn back to the former delight and forget the existence of pain. But the steady voice persists, and will not be quenched.

"Instead of trying to do this, you turn away from it; you shut yourselves within your park walls and garden gates; and you are content to know that there is beyond them a whole world in wilderness, a world of secrets which you dare not penetrate, and of suffering which you dare not conceive."

Hazel looks round on the garden. How pleasant it is! Why should she leave it? Why should she concern herself with what may lie outside this home-kingdom of hers? She tries again to banish the voice, yet she knows in her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, that, outside of that little rose-covered wall, the wild grass, to the horizon, is torn up by the agony of men, and beat level by the drift of their life-blood.

Yes, it is useless; there is no escaping the truth the voice tells. So Hazel yields herself to listen as it goes on.

"I knew you would like that to be true; you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them; nay, more, if your look had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard.... This you would think a great thing! And do you not think it a greater thing that all this (and how much more than this) you can do for fairer flowers than these, flowers that could bless you for having blessed them, and will love you for having loved them; flowers that have thoughts like yours, and lives like yours, and which, once saved, you save for ever? Is this only a little power? Far among the moorlands and the rocks, far in the darkness of the terrible streets, these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves torn and their stems broken; will you never go down to them, nor set them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor fence them, in their trembling, from the fierce wind?"

Engrossed with the voice, Hazel has been walking on, little heeding whither she goes, when, as its tones die away, a groan startles her. How terrible its sound; how incongruous, interrupting the soft harmonious chorus of the soaring, singing birds! So painfully near it seemed, too, it could but have been a very little distance off outside that gate which she sees before her. Her first impulse is to draw back and retire, shuddering, far into the garden. But, behold! the gate swings back of its own accord, and in the face of that fact, and with the remembrance of the words she has heard, she dare not do other than pass through the open way.

What a strange, wide world, and how dreary! A great, mad battle is raging; the grass, sloping up to the horizon, is scorched with the heat of the sun—the sun which only made a pleasant warmth in the shady garden. There is the fierce galloping of horses, and wrestling and fighting of men. Shouts and groans fill the air and drown the song of the birds. There are heaps of dying and wounded. Ah! there is one man not a stone's throw from her; his must have been the voice that reached her within her gates. How remarkable that she should have heard nothing before of all the great din. Another groan, followed by some inaudible words, causes Hazel timidly to approach the wounded man. He is evidently one of the very poorest of the "common" soldiers; and there is a look in his face which speaks the word death with a shudder in the girl's heart. A gleam lightens the agony in the man's eyes as he sees the white form and gentle face above him. He gazes steadily a moment, as though to make sure his vision is not a passing illusion; then Hazel catches the words, "Were you sent to me?"

Very quietly she tells him in whose name she comes. Then, with a long, struggling sigh of satisfaction, without a shadow of further questioning in the dying eyes or voice, he whispers—"Hope even for me in Him, then, since He sent you!"

So the low, flickering flame of life, set free, leaps up to its source; and the forsaken home rests in unbroken peace.

Saddened, and yet peaceful, too, Hazel turns slowly away from the battle-field, and walks on, not noticing whither she goes. Jarring sounds recall her, and she finds herself in a narrow valley, surrounded by noisy children and brawling women. No one seems conscious of her presence. A lot of men are lounging against the wall of a public-house. The low building is conspicuous by its being in good repair, while its neighbours are all in a shattered condition. The window-frames are painted and varnished, and the open entrance discloses a smart interior. A few doors beyond this the houses reach the climax of desolate disorder. The whole place is tumbling down; the window is broken; the battered door is off its hinges, propped up against the wall. A cripple girl is sitting on a broken box, turned upside down, immediately outside this miserable hovel. Her face is a greater shock to Hazel than any of the other wretchedness around. There is a desperation of bitterness in that set, white face, with its hollow eyes and cheeks, which is absolutely appalling. Hazel had always imagined that suffering must of necessity, by its own inherent nature, bring with it a patience which would be reflected in a sweet face. Slowly, as she scans those immovable features, full of pain, and still more full of dogged rebellion, this idea has to be abandoned. Here obviously is a human being in the midst of a noisy squalor, whose physical disease and torture is unlightened by one softening ray of hope; whose misery is too sullen and dull to rise even to the hope of putting an end to itself.

One moment and the deformed girl starts apprehensively. A sob has sounded in her ear, and some one, unlike any she has ever seen heretofore, stands beside her, taking her hand in mute, unspeakable compassion. She cowers back against the wall and drags away her hand; Hazel's purity and loveliness raises in her only a shrinking dislike and dread of contact.

It is long before the pleading, loving voice gains any hearing; but at last, before the two part, some faint expression of intelligent thought has dawned on the lame girl's brow; and in her mind a question has been raised, "Can it be that there is one who loves me and has need of me?"

The evening sunlight is falling through the birches in the beautiful garden; the air is full of fragrance and harmony; the queen is returning. Wearily she opens the gate to enter. She is filled with pain, for the many sadnesses to which she has drawn near have touched her own soul with the shadow of suffering.

Suddenly, in the chequered shade of the trees at the entrance of the garden, she stops and turns round, for a bright radiance envelops her. And, lo! there stands One, in glorious light—One in whose Divine face love is shining. Hazel bows down, her whole soul overwhelmed with reverent awe. Then her hand is taken and held with a touch which thrills her with exquisite rapture, and a voice in her ears says—

"Come, see with Me My garden."

And the air, which is filled with light, grows buoyant, and, while her hand is still clasped by the Divine Guide, she is wafted upwards.

Stretched out below, the hills and vales of the earth are one vast garden. All is indistinct at first; expanses of misty colour and tint; but by degrees the scene resolves itself into more definite form. The whole is intersected and watered with streams, more or less clear and pure, which arise and are replenished from a bright vapour, the Spirit of Life, which shines, issuing forth from an empty tomb in a rock in the East. There are banks of wild violets and primroses, and woods filled with anemones and hyacinths—myriads of beautiful flowers, reaching over all the world.

Hazel has hardly taken in anything of the wonder of the scene, when her attention is attracted by an arch of white mist above the earth, and, as it seems, but a few paces from her. Gradually this path of mist grows clear as crystal, and the colours glancing in it take shape, and form a clear, transparent picture.

A cornfield on a summer evening, filled with blossoms of poppies and corn-flowers. A wild storm sweeps over the field; the corn is broken down; the flowers are crushed beneath its weight, draggled and withered. A poppy, torn up by its roots, is whirled through the air.

A mist sweeps over the crystalline cloud, and where it grows clear again the scene is changed to a wild hill-side. Scarlet and blue flowers intermingle in the distance; in the foreground lies a single poppy, withered and dying. Slowly, beside it a lily grows up; as it grows the fading poppy is stirred, touched by its leaves; and the tiny bells waving over it inspire new life and vigour, till at length, grown whole and fresh, it is loosened from the brown uptorn roots, and floats upwards, to bloom more beautiful in Paradise.

Again the mist passes over the light picture and changes it. A woodland scene is painted there now. Amid the fern and moss and twigs under the trees, wild flowers are blowing. A pathway intersects the little wood, and across it shadows of the trees fall, with sunlight between. In the foremost patch of sunshine, at the edge of the path, is a sprinkling of anemone leaves. And there amongst them a delicate blossom, half crushed by the superincumbent weight of moss, the fallen leaves of last year, and tiny, lichen-covered twigs. The white, transparent petals are soiled and deformed, thrust down to the earth. As Hazel looks, regretting that she has not the power to stretch forth her hand and clear away the destructive weight, the leaves and twigs tremble, and are uplifted, and fall away from the slender plant, for close beside it a hardy little fern frond slowly uncurls itself and arises. The frail blossom stirs slightly, released from the overwhelming pressure; but has no strength to do more. Oh, for water to revive it! And, lo! from the fair green fern drops of dew embosomed there are shed and scattered over the downcast head. They are drunk in, and by degrees the drooping cup is raised to the friendly fern. And then, the straight young frond, itself ever growing, waves aside in a natural, graceful sweep, and allows the sunshine in all its strong radiance and reviving force to fall full on the flower. And the half-closed bell joyously expanding, grows white and strong and beautiful.

And so the crystal pictures change and change, till Hazel's every helpful act has been set forth. Then, as the last fades, and the arch of storied light itself dissolves and melts, with one all-absorbing passion of eternal devotion flooding her whole being, Hazel turns to Him who has kept her beside Him throughout, her hand retained in His. For one moment she beholds Him, the Unutterable One; and in His Sacred Face she reads, amid ineffable love and infinite majesty, a look of gratitude. And once more the Divine accents fall on her ear, saying—

"'Inasmuch as thou didst it unto one of these My brethren, even these least, thou didst it unto Me.'

"Let not those, the queens of the earth, to whom I have given the priceless gifts of life and leisure, hold either lightly. Life, with its sorrows and its joys, is but the education time fitting them to live for ever with Me. The leisure I have bestowed may be used for Me, in doing work in My garden—work which I have prepared for them to do, and which I long to see done. Let them see to it that they waste not the opportunity in fretful discontent and idleness—'And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones, a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, she shall in no wise lose her reward.'"

Hazel awoke. The moon was streaming in through the window. The grate was filled with shining blocks of coal, and a few half-burnt matches. Aching all over, and shivering with cold, she closed her eyes once more, and a period of insensibility followed.

Many days and nights of feverish illness ensued—days and nights in which Hazel had much to suffer, and was only from time to time conscious of the loving, unceasing care which watched over her. In those intervals when her mind was not dazed and confused, she saw a face, old and plain and wrinkled, which was to her as the face of an angel, for Miss Bright tended and watched her with all the self-sacrifice of a noble, true woman.

At length, after a weary, weary time of pain, Hazel fell asleep once more. Her dream came back to her, for she thought she was resting in the warm sunshine on a bed of lilies in the same beautiful garden. And when she opened her eyes she found her room was really bright and warm with a fire and sunshine, and fresh and sweet with the fragrance of lilies of the valley, a large bunch of them standing beside her, and more lying on the white coverlid of her bed. Her eyes filled and her heart swelled with gratitude. Softly she whispered, as though she spoke to someone close beside her, "Dear Lord, I am so thankful to Thee for making me better. I so longed to live a little while more to do some work for Thee in Thy garden. I bless Thee so!"

The door opened, and Brightie came in. The brave old woman broke down as she clasped Hazel in her joy at the improvement in her. The two cried together for a little while; there was so very much to be glad about that the gladness was too great for self-control.

A few days later, a girl with a white but radiantly happy face is resting in a cane armchair, her feet supported by a footstool, in the garden of a pretty country house at Fridorf. The sunshine is hot, but she is shaded from it by a trellis work of young-leaved creepers overhead. Lilacs and laburnum trees bloom abundantly around. The lawn before her is smooth and green, and beyond is the sea.

"How wonderful God's love is!" the girl says, presently, reaching out her hand to an old woman with a peaceful face who shortly joins her, and who clasps and retains the hand with an answering look more eloquent than speech.

THE END