‘It was her idea, too, to take an apprentice for the same business, as she had got on so well herself. So we looked about, not for a young child, but for a grown girl; and at last we found one of sixteen years of age, small and half-starved, helping her mother at the wash-tub. I hope to train a good many more, but I shall always look out for one that’s been half-starved. The first thing we did was to feed her up—beefsteaks and porter, strong broth, essence of meat, and eggs beaten up in port wine. Now, all that would have turned to fat and done her no good, only I made her take exercise with it. I hung up a pair of rings about seven feet high in a doorway, and used to keep her drawing herself up and down by the arms all day long, on and off. We used to sit in the room to watch her and tell her when to leave off; and my wife would promise her a new tie or a hat or a pair of earrings as soon as she could pull up a certain number of times. For the first month, she used to complain of pains at the back of the shoulder-blades, but a little embrocation soon eased it. That’s all the work she did for three months, and by that time she had arms nearly as big as mine! Then we took her up on the bars with us. She’s been with us three years now, and won’t be out of her time for another two; and then I shall take her into the firm as a partner, or engage her at a good salary; for she’s as strong as a man, and yet light enough for my wife to catch. I have paid her mother five shillings a week ever since we have had her, and we have made her presents, besides feeding and clothing her. When she is perfect in the business we are practising now, I am going to give her a five-pound note.’ Mrs Gymnast was a graceful, slender woman of exquisite symmetry, some seven-and-twenty years old. Miss Apprentice, though nineteen, was no taller than many girls five years her junior, but had the limbs and muscles of a young giantess. THE ABANDONMENT OF WIND-POWER.