the proper place for the operation; no one but an idiot would have
attempted to perform it in a kitchen, and without help.

We gave them hints on etiquette. We told them how to address peers and
bishops; also how to eat soup. We instructed shy young men how to
acquire easy grace in drawing-rooms. We taught dancing to both sexes by
the aid of diagrams. We solved their religious doubts for them, and
supplied them with a code of morals that would have done credit to a
stained-glass window.

The paper was not a financial success, it was some years before its time,
and the consequence was that our staff was limited. My own apartment, I
remember, included "Advice to Mothers"--I wrote that with the assistance
of my landlady, who, having divorced one husband and buried four
children, was, I considered, a reliable authority on all domestic
matters; "Hints on Furnishing and Household Decorations--with Designs" a
column of "Literary Counsel to Beginners"--I sincerely hope my guidance
was of better service to them than it has ever proved to myself; and our
weekly article, "Straight Talks to Young Men," signed "Uncle Henry." A
kindly, genial old fellow was "Uncle Henry," with wide and varied
experience, and a sympathetic attitude towards the rising generation. He
had been through trouble himself in his far back youth, and knew most
things. Even to this day I read of "Uncle Henry's" advice, and, though I
say it who should not, it still seems to me good, sound advice. I often
think that had I followed "Uncle Henry's" counsel closer I would have
been wiser, made fewer mistakes, felt better satisfied with myself than
is now the case.

A quiet, weary little woman, who lived in a bed-sitting room off the
Tottenham Court Road, and who had a husband in a lunatic asylum, did our