their meals with the servants in her house. Mrs. Maxwell (Miss Braddon) has also been a very good friend to us, and has had many girls down to the New Forest, where she lives in the summer; and she now helps many poorer members who cannot afford all the expenses of the holidays. Once we took a cottage near Virginia Water; six girls went down together and boarded with the mistress of the cottage. This was a most beautiful neighborhood to stay in, and so well could they walk that they thought nothing of visiting St. Anne's Hill, and Windsor Castle, which was ten miles off. Sometimes we found lodgings for our girls in farm-houses and cottages in the country. The first visit we paid together in a large party was to an iron house that Mr. Weigall had put up at Ramsgate for the holiday use of working people. Eighteen girls slept together in one large dormitory. I had a sort of closet adjoining with the window opening on to their room, and by eleven at night I was obliged to enforce silence, so excited were the party that the talk and the laughter never seemed to cease. But sleep was not for long, for as the first rays of the summer sun burst in upon them they woke to joyous laughter and incessant talk. We had to make our holiday, as usual, at the time of the Bank Holiday, when the working-girls can have three and four days away from business. Some food we had brought with us; the rest had to be cooked as best it could. The sea air and happiness gave us good appetites, which made us not over-critical. We had two more visits on this coast. Our most kind friend, Mrs. Williams, at the Westcliffe Hotel, Westgate-on-Sea, lent us, in 1884, several rooms in a hotel, which she put at the disposal of myself and eighteen girls. Here we had a splendid time, bathing most days, walking to Margate and Birchington, and making expeditions to Canterbury and other places. We were prepared for our visit to Canterbury by having read in the evenings the Memorials of Canterbury," that people can hardly imagine? When they walked down to the sea, they could on one side look on the steep rocks of Hartland Point, and on the other side were the wild spurs of the Cornish coast. Then at other times they could wander about the delicious garden, through all the luxuriant growth of Devonshire flowers. The three weeks' visit is never concluded before they have been taken to see that unique and most enchanting spot in England, Clovelly, with its steep, precipitous road down to the sea, which no cart or carriage can traverse, as it by Dean Stanley, so that when we were shown through the Cathedral, and the scene of the murder of Thomas à Becket was pointed out to us, one of the girls exclaimed, "Why, that is just what was in the book!" They thus gained their first idea of history. Not a moment was spared from the enjoyment of the fresh air; sometimes the girls would rub their cheeks with the salt water and then lie down in the sun unprotected from the rays, in hopes they would thus get red faces, which to their minds was the greatest beauty they could possess, as it was a sign of health. It was a happiness to see their joy, and any trouble or fatigue was amply compensated by the sense of the perfectly pure, simple, wholesome happiness which was given to this holiday party. Another time a house was lent to us at Herne Bay for a few days. This again we enjoyed very much. One of the ladies of our Soho Club Council, Mrs. Stueley, has for many years invited two girls in August to stay in her own house at Hartland Abbey. Can you fancy the happiness of these visitors, who come from the toiling, noisy, heated atmosphere of London, to revel in these natural beauties, which take hold of them in a way is by many steps that you descend the long street. Let me speak of one of the three visits we paid to the Marquis and Marchioness of Sligo at Loseley Hall, a beautiful Elizabethan house belonging to Mr. Molyneux, whose ancestors had received here the great Queen Elizabeth on a visit. We were all lodged during our four days' visit in June of the Whitsun holidays in the daintily furnished guest rooms. I do not think any fairy tale could have devised a more lovely transformation scene than that of our eighteen Soho Club girls, released from their toil, freed from the noise and bustle of the great city, transported from their overcrowded streets and homes to this lovely abode, warmly welcomed by their hostess, shown the gardens, the park, the woods, the fields, which they were bidden to visit when they pleased; no restrictions, perfect liberty, a liberty which I may say is never abused. And what delicious country food, the bread, the butter, the milk, the eggs-were they not all of superlative excellence! And if to us who have so much pleasure a country visit is delightful, what must it be to our hard-worked girls? The natural shyness of finding themselves in such new surroundings soon wears off, when all are prepared to make them happy; the kind servants, with whom they had their meals on this visit, did not consider the large inroad as a trouble; they also made the girls most welcome. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and on the Sunday we walked through the park to the pretty village and to the parish church. Mademoiselle de Peyronet, the sister of our hostess, brought us back another way, and what laughter and amusement were caused, as we walked through the deep lane, at our shoes filling and refilling with the light sand! Then, in the afternoon. what a walk we had to the Hog's Back, looking over the wooded pas tures of Surrey, the view stretching far away till we thought we could see the sea! On Monday, after visiting the ruined Castle of Guildford, we were actually driven out to the great public school of Charter House, and were present at a concert. Each day some of the girls went out very early, anxious to see the dew on the grass and the early rising sun. I must say we had a most perfect time of happiness; I will not say the best, for has not each visit been delightful? In the last few years the girls have had most happy weeks in Cumberland: they have lived in cottages close to Muncaster Castle, under Scawfell, which they as cended with Lady Morpeth, whose guests they were; the pleasure of the ascent being somewhat enhanced by the peril of being caught in a mist as they came down. Two or three weeks they spent there; every day an excursion was planned for them to the moors, to the river, to the sea, or up the mountain; and the first sight of mountains is as great and thrilling a sensation as the first sight of the sea, and is one never to be forgotten. More than twenty of our members have been to Cumberland. Some of them paid a visit to me in a charming cottage in the heart of the mountains, that had been lent to me by Lady Muncaster. Here we had a very pleasant time, endless walks over the mountains and the moors, bring ing home wild flowers and blackberries, which we made into jam. The cottage was close to a beautiful mountain river with its interesting walls and quaint and a very fine waterfall; every day one of the girls, who had learned to swim at the London baths, plunged into the river and swam round and round the deep pool. This same girl, who had been a member of our Club for fifteen years, had read and loved and pondered over some of Ruskin's books, and she had the great pleasure of paying a visit with me to Coniston and of being introduced to Mr. Ruskin, who very kindly spoke to her, and she told him what a help his written words had been to her in her own life, particularly those in "A Joy Forever," where he tells us that "wisdom is the reward of kindness, of modesty, of industry," three simple qualities we felt that the humblest might try to possess. Her introduction to these books had been made when on a visit at Haslemere to Mrs. Macmillan, who had read some passages from Modern Painters" to her, which had revealed to this London toiler the higher aspects of life and the beauties of nature. Once more let me tell of the visit to Wales, those most happy days, never to be forgotten by any one of our party. We stayed first at Portmadoc for a week, but on the journey from London the eight girls had stopped at Chester to be shown by Mrs. Tom Hughes that ancient town streets. While at Portmadoc we had the ascent of Snowdon, the visit to Mr. Oakley's beautiful place, Tan y Broleh, where a most excellent dinner was served for us in the dining-room, which overlooked the valley and mountains; then a drive through the woods and the journey on the Toy railway. Another day we went all over the slate quarry, and were shown everything by the manager; another morning we made an early start in a tug to visit the Harbor Bar, recalling as we went the beautiful poem of "The Crossing of the Bar." After a perfect week spent at Portmadoc we went on to Holyhead, seeing Carnarvon Castle on the way. Another week was only too quickly passed as guests of the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, a week ever to be prized and probably never to be equaled, with expeditions up the mountains, visits to the South Stack, the sight there of the sea-gulls busy in their noisy preparation for departure on the 12th of August. There were the daily bathing and swimming in the sea, moonlight walks, visits to the almshouses, and to the Welshwomen with their tall hats, and to the Breakwater. Here was the first introduction of our girls to a real hero, a fisherman, one who had saved three men from a wreck with his small fishing-boat, and to whom since had been |