‘In that case, I will hold myself in readiness. I have long desired the pleasure of Sir William’s acquaintance. We could scarcely meet under more agreeable auspices.’ Then suddenly grasping Mr Etheridge by the sleeve, she said in her deepest tones: ‘I felt sure from the first moment I set eyes on her that this Madame De Vigne was an impostor!’
‘Dear me!’ ejaculated the old gentleman with uplifted hands. ‘What acumen—what acumen!’
Her ladyship smiled a superior smile. ‘For the present I will say Ta-ta. You will not forget that I shall be in readiness to see Sir William at any moment?’
‘I will be sure not to forget. Au revoir, madam—au revoir.’
Lady Renshaw walked back to the hotel with the serene consciousness of having performed a meritorious action. Through her instrumentality an impostor would be unmasked, and in so far, Society would owe her a debt of gratitude. The service, too, was such a one as Sir William would not be likely to forget. Suddenly, a great, an overwhelming thought flashed across her mind. Sir William was a widower, but by no means a very old man—at least, so she had been given to understand; and in any case, he was not too old to marry again, if the whim were to take him. What if he were to—— The mere idea of such a thing made her heart go pit-a-pat. There was a mirror in the corridor. She simpered at herself in it as she passed and gave a tug at one or two of her ribbons. Undeniably, she was still a fine-looking woman. Far more unlikely things had happened than that which her thoughts had barely hinted at. What was it that the parrot in its gilded cage at the top of the stairs said to her as she passed? Did her ears deceive her, or was it a fact that it screamed after her, ‘Lady—Lady—La-dy Ridsdale?’
COOKING CLASSES FOR CHILDREN.
‘I have been reproaching myself,’ was the piteous plaint of Mrs Butler (Fanny Kemble) in her Records of Later Life, ‘and reproving others, and honestly regretting that, instead of Italian and music, I had not learned a little domestic economy, and how much bread, butter, flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and meat ought to be consumed per week by a family of eight persons.’ This is the lesson that great part of the world of women has still to learn. We have allowed mere accomplishments, the fringe and lace of life, to draw our attention from those solid and necessary things which a woman must know if her home is to be comfortable, and which a man knows nothing about except that in their results they make him contentedly happy or utterly miserable. A woman can obtain a more sensible, more thorough, in every way a better education in book-knowledge now than at almost any previous period of our national life; but the gain has been made at a price. Reaction is required, and indeed has set in already. We may see its fruits in the schools of Cookery for Ladies established in all our great towns; in the classes for dressmaking, clear-starching, and ironing; in the newly awakened interest in domestic economy as a science, in the countless books on that subject and on cookery published during the last few years.
The work is by no means done yet. That there are many to be taught and much to be learned, we may gather from a glance at the questions asked on such subjects in our principal ladies’ papers; where but the other day we find a newly married lady wishing to know if, on an income of five hundred pounds a year, without house-rent, she can keep a butler, a cook-housekeeper, a housemaid, a carriage and pair of horses, and a pony and cart!
But we wish to turn now to the wants of another class, and see what has been done and what can be done for our poorer sisters, who sorely need our help in this matter.
If it be true that education is the work of drawing out the mental powers of children so as to fit them thoroughly for their work in life, then we certainly for a time overshot our mark in elementary schools, so far as the girls were concerned. We taught them many things which they did not need to know, and could not learn thoroughly for want of time—much which almost unfitted them for their probable places in life as working-men’s wives; and we left untaught altogether all the womanly and useful arts of life except sewing. Good management has become rarer and rarer in the homes of town working-men; the thrifty, careful housewives seem as units among scores of careless, bad—because ignorant—mismanagers. The early age at which girls go to work in factories increases the evil; and, till lately, nothing which was taught at school helped to remedy it. Here, too, however, the change has begun, and now, in the Board Schools of London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, and other large towns, the practical teaching of cookery holds almost as important a place in the education of girls as the teaching of sewing. But the question remains for the managers of voluntary schools: Is cooking worth teaching? Can it be successfully taught in our schools? Will it pay?