Funeral, and the Bee-master's Visit to
his Hives on the Moors, combined with attendance at Church on a hot
Sunday afternoon in August (it need scarcely be said that the church
is a real one). But, good though all this is, it is too long and "out
of proportion," when one reflects how much of the plot was left to be
unravelled in the other half of the tale. "The World" could not
properly be squeezed into a space only equal in size to that which had
been devoted to "Home." If Julie had been in better health, she would
have foreseen the dilemma into which she was falling, but she did not,
and in the autumn of 1878 she had to lay the tale aside, for Major
Ewing was sent to be stationed at York. "We" was put by until the
following volume, but for this (1878) one she wrote two other short
contributions,--"The Yellow Fly, a Tale with a Sting in it," and
"So-so."

To those who do not read between the lines, "So-so" sounds (as he
felt) "very soft and pleasant," but to me the tale is in Julie's
saddest strain, because of the suspicion of hopelessness that pervades
it;--a spirit which I do not trace in any of her other writings.

"Be sure, my child," said the widow to her little daughter, "that
you always do just as you are told."

"Very well, mother."

"Or at any rate do what will do just as well," said the small
house-dog, as he lay blinking at the fire.

* * * * *

"For the future, my child," said the widow, "I hope you will always
do just as you are told, whatever So-so may say."

"I will, mother," said little Joan. (And she did.) But the
house-dog sat and blinked. He dared not speak, he was in disgrace.

"I do not feel quite sure about So-so. Wild dogs often amend their
ways far on this side of the gallows, and the Faithful sometimes
fall, but when any one begins by being only so-so, he is very apt
to be so-so to the end. So-so's so seldom change."

Before turning from the record of my sister's life at Manchester, I
must mention a circumstance which gave her very great pleasure there.
In the summer of 1875 she and I went up from Aldershot to see the
Exhibition of Water-Colours by the Royal Society of Painters, and she
was completely fascinated by a picture of Mr. J.D. Watson's, called "A
Gentleman of the Road." It represented a horseman at daybreak,
allowing his horse to drink from a stream, whilst he sat half-turned
in t