Tall Girl.—Provided that your intimacy with this man and the fact of his alluding to your eventual marriage be known to your parents and approved of, the next time he makes such an allusion, ask him about the wishes of his own family in respect to it, and say that you could not consent to any clandestine engagement; on your own part all was open and satisfactory, and you required that all should be equally so on his. An introduction to his parents should be arranged for without any further delay, and they and your own parents should have an interview together to settle all business matters on behalf of yourself and any future family.
Pop.—We could not say that to dye the hair is wrong; it is unwise and unbecoming. Some people’s hair turns grey in separate streaks and patches, and has a magpie effect, which forms some excuse for temporary dyeing. But it is a very silly, vain thing for a young girl to dye her eyebrows, especially as the attempt at deception of such a kind is so complete a failure. That no one knows your secret is a mere delusion. Your “no ones” must be remarkably “blind buzzards.”
Gumpot had better send her dress to a dyer’s, as she has made such a failure herself. Home-dyeing is usually so.
Wee-wo.—It is perfectly inadmissible to pick any description of bones in the fingers in any polite society. It is a dirty habit, which obtains amongst third or fourth class foreigners. Possibly you might see an old and decrepid person or invalid of the upper circles of society breaking through all acknowledged rules of good breeding when in the privacy of home, and do many little things which they would certainly not have done in former times. They take a special licence, as it were, in view of the infirmities of health or age; but no such liberty could be accorded to younger or stronger persons.
Miss Biggs.—If you look through one or two of our recent numbers you will find a long answer on the subject of phosphorescent plants, etc.
Leamingtonian.—1. We thank you warmly for your gratifying letter. We can quite understand that our answers, like the arrow “drawn at a venture,” will often strike where unknown to us, and carry, as you say, regarding yourself, “a message specially for me.” 2. The celebrated “White Horse of Wantage” (Berkshire), cut out of the chalk hills, commemorates a great victory gained by Alfred over the Danes during the reign of his then reigning brother, Ethelred I. It is called the Battle of Æscesdun (Ashtree-hill). The length of the horse is 384 feet, and it is visible at a distance of fifteen miles.
A Lady Student of Music.—We have read your letter with much distress; it reveals a state of things which should not exist. Professors in musical colleges should treat their young lady students with the same respect they would be obliged to show if they were giving lessons under their fathers’ roof. They should certainly not call them by their Christian names. We hope your letter is exaggerated; but we should, in any case, advise the authorities of such institutions to keep a sharper lookout, and, if need be, establish a duenna in each room, who should be empowered to keep these exuberant and presuming professors in order. There is nothing to prevent any girl from saying that she prefers being called Miss So-and-so to the use of her Christian name by strangers.
Ivy Leaf.—We believe that Lullington Church, in Sussex, is the smallest church in England; it is sixteen feet square; but, judging from some ruins on the exterior, it formed only part of a larger building, of which the present church may have been only the chancel. Tilham Church, near Gainsborough, is twenty-six feet long and seventeen feet wide. There are also small churches at Culborne, near Minehead, Chilcomb-grove, in Buckinghamshire, and St. Lawrence, in the Isle of Wight.
Matty.—We think, if your egg-eating hen be of little value, you had better have her killed at once; but the fault usually begins through lack of lime, which hens should always be able to get. Some people keep a box of old mortar and lime rubbish in a corner of the hen-house.
Mizpah.—Get a concordance, make a note of all the passages in which the term occurs, and draw your own conclusions. It is often the case that the accessories connected with certain acts—the company, hours, expenses, etc.—are alone to be condemned as more or less objectionable; not the mere act itself. Change these, and the latter may be good in itself. But we have no liberty to judge our neighbours in such matters. Every man must be “fully persuaded in his own mind.” “To his own Master he standeth or falleth.”