the heaviest rain, and the air is of the light, exhilarating quality which always goes with that particular kind of soil. Poor Margery asked me anxiously when I meant to go home, and was greatly relieved when she found that I did not mean to exceed the limit I had originally fixed to my visit. She was comfortable enough, she said, but they were an unsociable set, and did not live in the least like English servants. At about eight in the morning every one went down, took a little bowl from a shelf on the wall, got it filled with café au lait, and drank it with a little bit of breadand-butter, standing. There was nothing like a breakfast - table, and nobody thought of sitting down. They then all dispersed, and did not meet again until after our déjeuner à la fourchette at about twelve, when they had their second breakfast. This was devoured in all haste, after which they again separated. There was nothing like a servants'-hall, as in our great houses, and no assembling in the kitchen as in our small ones. The men-servants remained by themselves, and the women sat entirely in their own rooms. Excellent rooms they were, Margery told me; large, airy, with every comfort, and a look of prettiness and elegance that was quite unknown with us. Supper, which took place after our late dinner, brought them together again, but only for the purpose of eating-which ceremony, like the previous one, was got over as speedily as possible.

At breakfast we had Monsieur le Curé, from Marny-a stalwart, weatherbeaten-looking man, with a demure, rather sly, but not bad countenance. He sat between Madame Olympe and myself, and was putting her au courant of the affairs of the village. They did not appear to be in a very flourishing condition, as far as morality was concerned, for he continually began accounts of proceedings which, after the three first suggestive words, had to be imparted in a whisper, to the great annoyance of poor Madame Olympe, who nevertheless could not help laughing at the absurdity of the thing. The curé would begin :-" Madame la Comtesse has doubtless heard about Thérèse Pichon? Is she aware that only three nights ago .?" and then a long whisper. I endeavoured immediately to begin a little subject with Monsieur Kiowski; but I saw, by his absence of all rejoinder, and the frightful vacancy of the eye he riveted upon me, that he was straining every nerve to catch the luckless Thérèse's little adventure. A minute afterwards it would be, with great gravity, "Has Madame la Comtesse been told that Auguste Leroy is going to leave the village? It appears that on Wednesday last, one of the keepers going his rounds in the forest at midnight, found him. . . ." Then another whisper, and at the end, "His brother says that after that he will keep him no more. Dame! It is the third time that it happens!' At last there came a story, in which "la Malheureuse" played a great part, and was repeated with strong reprobatory emphasis. This story was a very long one, and presently reached such an appalling crisis that even poor Madame Olympe, who was, as one may say, "to the manner born," could stand it no longer, but calling out, "The boat! the boat!" hastily jumped up from table, and

ran to the window.

"The boat! where's the boat! let me see the boat!" cried Monsieur Kiowski, throwing

nearly

the

himself impetuously into the spirit of the thing, and

yoverturning the table in the wild excitement with which he tore to

morning regularly. To-day it appeared in the very nick of time, and deserved extra notice: but I observed that whenever it appeared it always created a slight agitation. I suppose that the general monotony of their lives ended with making little events become important in their eyes. When it had passed out of sight they returned to the table.

I do not think that in the whole course of my life I ever beheld any human creature devour as Monsieur le Curé did: he ate largely of soup, of both the hot dishes and of the three cold ones, besides the salad and other vegetables-which, although always handed round separately (and not, as we do in England, taken as an accompaniment to the meat), appeared to be thrown in as it were, and quite to go for nothing. He then, in addition to his wine-and-water, had a tremendous jorum of café au lait, and topped it all up with two gigantic tumblers of ale, and the fatal pastry-cake and honey that I have before alluded to. His face, always scarlet, had become gradually purple under this trying process, and I expected every minute that he would have some dreadful seizure or other. Madame Olympe told me that it was almost as if he laid in his week's provision of good substantial food, when he came up to breakfast at the château; that he was miserably poor, and a most excellent creature, half-starving himself in order to be able to give, out of his wretched pittance, some assistance to his still needier neighbours. The curé is an entirely different being from our country clergyman: very hard-working and exemplary, but in quite a different way, and altogether simpler and more homely. It is not at all an uncommon thing abroad to see the curé thinking nothing whatever of assisting in manual labour, but working in the field with his neighbours, and helping them to get in their hay. In one respect, a good sense is shown in Catholic countries, which might be imitated in the Church of England with infinite advantage: their clergymen are by no means necessarily preachers. The functions are divided: he who has the gift of an eloquent tongue, speaks to the souls of his parishioners through their ears, and he who has it not, labours in the vineyard of the Lord silently.

Madame Olympe was much troubled this morning about her poor housekeeper, who during the night had become a great deal worse. The illness had assumed a very grave character, and before breakfast she had been removed to the village, and put under the care of the good Sœur Marie and of a regular nurse. Monsieur le Curé had brought satisfactory news of her safe arrival at Marny, and told us that on the whole she had borne her little journey fairly well.

After breakfast Monsieur Kiowski brought down his portfolios, and we passed a delightful two hours looking over his drawings, and some beautiful photographs which he had brought from Italy. Nothing ever was more kind and amiable than he was: bringing them all to the sofa for me, and

improvising a sort of desk with the pillow, so that I could see them without tiring either my head or my hands. "That is St. Peter's," said he, a little unnecessarily; "the largest and most important church of Rome. It is in St. Peter's that all the ceremonies of the Holy Week take place, and from it that the world-famous benediction is given. That is the Colosseum; formerly it was the arena in which the combats of the gladiators were witnessed; now it serves the purpose of a church, where people come to hear preaching, and to pray at little stations which have been erected in it."

I was amazed at the delicacy and beauty of his drawings; Monsieur Berthier, too, was charmed with them. "The fineness of touch is quite incredible!" he said several times with enthusiasm, and indeed in some of the drawings it was really impossible to see where the strokes were by which the enchanting result was arrived at. Mothers and children seemed to be favourite subjects with him his book was filled with children in every sort of position: his babies are perfect,-so unconscious, and all the little lovely melting bits-the round of the temple and cheek, the little soft way in which the head sits on the neck of a baby-felt with a maternal tenderness that seemed quite extraordinary in a young man. Presently I came, among the drawings, upon a lovely sketch of the river and forest, taken from the château. I exclaimed when I recognized it, and in the kindest and most charming way he immediately entreated me to accept it. I felt dreadfully ashamed at having so valuable a present made me, but it was so pretty and so delightful a souvenir of my visit, that I could not bring myself to refuse it; and all the less that I saw by his manner that it would be a real pleasure to him to give it to me. Ursula Hamilton was in ecstasies over all the drawings, but most especially about a coloured sketch of the picture Monsieur Kiowski was now engaged upon. The subject was the death of Titian: it was wonderfully harmonious and full of character. There was one head-that of a pupil of Titian's-a soft, young, dark Italian face, that was full of sentiment; and there were two women—one in pale crocus-coloured draperies, with a tiger-lily in her hand, and another in a sort of gold and brown brocade, with her back turned and her head thrown over her shoulder-that were quite magnificent.

"How I do wish I could paint!" said Ursula. "Why don't you?" said Monsieur Kiowski.

"If I were not going to-night I would teach you. With Miss Hamilton's feeling for art, she would soon learn-wouldn't she, Monsieur Berthier?"

"In water-colours," said Monsieur Berthier.

Why not in oils?" asked Ursula impetuously. Ah, I see!" she added: "la femme-la femme-et toujours la femme!" and she came and sat down impatiently by my sofa. "I do get so sick of the way he always goes maundering on about the inferiority of women! I am sure you don't agree with him-you don't believe him, do you?"

"I think we are different creatures," said I, "but I don't see that difference necessarily implies inferiority: as we are inferior to them in certain faculties of the mind which they possess."

"Yes," she interrupted, "the heavy, slow, tiresome ones

"So," continued I, laughing, "I also think that they are inferior to us in other mental qualities which belong entirely, or, at all events, in a much higher degree of perfection, to us. Moreover, I believe that these very differences were beneficently bestowed upon us, 'not to doubtful disputations,' but that man might strengthen the spirit of woman in the bearing of her burdens, and that woman might lighten the heart of man in the carrying of his-that each might be, in their very unlikeness, a comfort, a joy, and a completion to the other."

"At all events you are fair," said Ursula. "You meet one half way, but I felt inclined to hurl things at him yesterday at dinner when he went pottering on with his Faust and his Hamlet, and his Hamlet and his Faust. Who ever said that metaphysics, abstract speculation (the least useful of all things, by the way,) were the forte of women? But it is a perfectly different matter with the passions-they belong to us every bit as much as to men, and I don't see why we shouldn't be able to delineate them quite as well. It's all very well to talk,—but what sort of intellectual nourishment do women get? What is called their education consists for the most part of nothing but a series of abridgments, filtered through miserable smatterers. Let a woman just for once have the mental training that almost every man gets, and then we shall see—"

"Whether she will write a Hamlet?" said I, smiling.

"Well, perhaps she may not be able to write a Hamlet, but I can't for the life of me see why she shouldn't write an As You Like It." "As You Like It!" I echoed in utter amazement.

“Yes—As You Like It-why not? That is not powerful: it is not even passionate. Don't you see that I am taking up a modest position?"

I couldn't help it; I burst into a peal of laughter from which I was only roused by the tears of mortification which I saw standing in her eyes.

"My dear child," said I, "calmness is power, and the strongest spirits are not those who awaken tumult in our breasts, but those who bring us into peace. As for As You Like It, I love that play so dearly, that I believe on the whole I would rather have written it than any of the others. It seems to me to have a divine quality about it: it leaves one as a fine landscape does-with eyes dimmed by mists of tenderness, not of sorrow, and with a heart adoring God and gentler towards one's kind."

Meanwhile Lady Blankeney and Maria had got one of Monsieur Kiowski's sketch-books in their hands the wrong way upwards, and were, apparently with the greatest interest, inspecting the slight pencil landscapes upside down. At last, after having gone through it scrupulously from beginning to end, they put it upon the table.

'Did you like them? asked Ursula, drily, when they had done. "Quite charming!" said Lady Blankeney, smiling. "Such a treat. By-the-way, my dear Ursula," she continued, "I have heard from the Marquise de Verneuil this morning, a most civil kind note (nothing like

the Faubourg St. Germain after all, is there ?), and she is quite in despair at your not coming; but I hope you will revoke that cruel decision."

"I think your decision was the cruel one," answered Ursula. “I have a friend come from another country to see me; I beg you to get Madame de Verneuil's permission that he should accompany us, and you entirely decline doing so."

"Why, my dear Ursula," said Lady Blankeney, rather embarrassed, "you are such a dear ardent creature, and the moment an idea runs away with you there is no making you understand. You see it is a very small, select thing."

"If Jacques is not fit company for them," said Ursula, "neither am I."

"But, my dear child, the thing is so simple," said Lady Blankeney. 'Quite so," retorted Ursula; "he is not going, neither am I."

66

"But, my dear, she's delighted," said Lady Blankeney-" quite delighted, on the contrary-so very anxious to make his acquaintance, I've got the letter here," she said, tapping her pocket, "and she will only be too charmed——”

"Then you thought better of it and wrote after all?" said Ursula. "Was it after you heard Jacques play?"

"Well, I don't exactly remember what day it was," said Lady Blankeney, getting red and hesitating.

"But it was after you heard him play -," said Ursula. there to be music at Madame de Verneuil's?"

"Pray, is

"Yes," said Lady Blankeney; "she gives the best musical parties in Paris, and I happened in my note to mention your friend's great talent, and then of course in hers she said she would be only too enchanted." "Oh, and I am to sing, I suppose?" said Ursula.

66

Why, of course," said Lady Blankeney. "We quite reckon on you, my dear. The dear Marquise was in ecstasies when she heard how beautifully Monsieur Dessaix played, and I'm sure she's only too happy to have him. She says so in her note here,"-again tapping her pocket. "Would you like to see her note?"

"O dear, no. Pray don't trouble yourself, Lady Blankeney," said Ursula. "We shall neither of us go. I do not mean to sing anywhere but in my own home." (Poor Lady Blankeney looked terribly chapfallen.) "And as for Jacques, he is not professional a bit more than myself; he is in no need whatever of money, and therefore I don't exactly see why he should go and play for a woman whose house you considered too good for him until you thought of making use of him."

"Oh, my dear Ursula, you really have such a way of putting things; but I'm sure you couldn't-you wouldn't-it would be such a disappointment!" besought poor Lady Blankeney, in utter dismay. "It has all been my fault-I assure you it has all been my fault-my little nervous way, you know. If it hadn't been the Faubourg, it would have been quite, quite different, you know; but it is always so select there! But now that she