Marie; that of course a marriage with so hideous a deformity is impossible; but, pauvre garçon, they allow him to come to the house; he is not dangerous. Marie of course snubs him, and he sighs. Lunch is ready; the dwarf sits on a tall baby chair, and talks easily, merrily and intelligently. He is so repulsive that I do not look at him. He seems quite at home with the Joulains; plays with the children and is a favourite. A ring at the door. "Un télégram pour Papa!" Wild excitement in the house.

"It is from my friend Blount !" exclaims Joulain, "telling me to join him at once in Spain, near Madrid. He will pay all my expenses. He wants me to paint a landscape for him there."

Quel bonheur ! Joy in the family. The remainder of the day is spent in packing up his portmanteau and getting his clothes ready.

The dwarf goes out, and brings back a melon as large as himself, and orders a dozen galettes (a flaky French pastry) and some bottles of first-rate Burgundy to celebrate this piece of good news. Marie sings German melodies, Lena (the German maid-of-all-work) joins, and everybody is jolly. At nine o'clock off starts Monsieur with his knapsack on his shoulder. There is a look of relief, for peace cannot be where he is. So adieu for the present.

BYSELAND.

THE next day I tell Madame Joulain that I am going to see Monsieur le Pasteur Byse and his family-that they are old friends of the Carnegies, and that I am sure to be a welcome guest. Madame looks rather black, and tells me that she is sorry that I want to know such people; that Monsieur Byse is an impostor, and not a pasteur at all. It is true he built a chapel many years ago for the use of the Protestants who came to Ruisseau les Bois, but he is not an ordained pasteur, and still calls himself so in order to get boarders from England and from America. Monsieur Adolphe Faquin is the orthodox pasteur, and that all right-minded people go to his chapel. Monsieur Byse's chapel is a sort of cheap advertisement for boarders, etc.; his daughters are the talk of the town; they dress extravagantly, wear huge chignons, and flirt with all the boarders, and do their best to get husbands; but one only has succeeded. Madame Joulain goes on telling me all these facts about la famille Byse in a monotonous weak voice which irritates me. "Well, madame," I answer, "I shall judge for myself. In England I have heard nothing but what is most favourable and charming of the Byses," and saying this I put on my hat and prepare to depart. Madame looks exceedingly annoyed, and begs me not to tell the Byses that she has said anything against them; on the contrary, she sends her kindest

amitiés to the young ladies. All this naturally makes me feel indignant, and walking along I meditate upon the envy, jealousy and malice of small towns.

I reach Bellevue; this is the name of Monsieur Byse's residence. It is a large white house, low but long. There is a porte-cochere. I ring; a neat bonne in a white cap and apron opens. I send in my card with the note from the Carnegies. In the garden a number of children are playing, some on swings, others with balls, ropes, etc. These are, I suppose, the grandchildren of Monsieur and Madame Byse; for one son and daughter are married, and they are now on a visit at Bellevue. I am ushered into a library; a pretty room with a green baize table, oak chairs, and bookcases filled with books. All at once a big door opens, and I am surrounded by at least a dozen Byses, all shaking hands with me most warmly, so glad to see me. How are the dear Carnegies? My hat is taken off by one, my cloak by another, my parasol and gloves by a third. I find myself seated, and questioned by all the family. But I must give a short sketch of Monsieur and Madame Byse at Ruisseau les Bois. Madame Byse is an English lady, rather elderly and very deaf; she belongs to a good family and has money. Monsieur is a short, thin, wiry man; people say that he never grows old and never will; he has always been the same; his hair is still quite black-some say it is a wig, but that is not true. He wears it very closely brushed to his head; his face is sallow, and his dark eyes often twinkle with quiet fun. He has been settled for more than forty years at Ruisseau les Bois. When he first came there was no regular chapel for the Protestants; by his energy and influence he had one built in his own garden. Two of his sons are pasteurs of the Eglise libre. Lately the government has sent a regular pasteur down there, much to the grief of Monsieur Byse, for a good many of his congregation have flocked to Monsieur Faquin, and deserted him. The enmity between these two servants of God is very remarkable. The two families are at daggers drawn with each other, and the separate congregations share that Christian feeling. There are two camps amongst that small knot of French Protestants at Ruisseau les Bois, and the camp Faquin does not visit the camp Byse.

People say that the pasteurs have each a telescope, and from an observatory they each count the people who attend the different chapels. The result of this is that many Protestants who wish to be on good terms with the two pasteurs refuse going to chapel at all. Some who are weak go alternately to the one and the other; but how hard it is to serve two masters!

Of course this state of feeling between the Protestants is applest and nuts to the Roman Catholics-a mere handful of people fighting amongst themselves as to who will be their pasteur. Monsieur Byse

says nothing ill-natured against Pasteur Faquin, nor does Pasteur Faquin against Pasteur Byse; but it is the wives, daughters, and women of each camp who are bitter and jealous.

I am introduced to the four Demoiselles Byse; the two eldest are over thirty-Clémence and Eugénie; they are still nice looking, and are ladylike and reserved. The other two, Rosalie and Jeanne, are much younger. Rosalie is four-and-twenty; Jeanne is two-andtwenty. They are decidedly pretty; dress extremely fashionably, a ltttle two loud, perhaps; they wear tremendous chignons, very highheeled shoes, big paniers, and certainly do not look like pasteurs' daughters.

Then there is Gustave; he is the eldest son, a pasteur, tall, thin, lanky, all legs and arms, with a quaint peculiar face; people say that he believes in nothing; his ideas are cold, queer, rationalistic. He is married, and I am introduced to his wife, a very small pretty woman, with a fascinating manner, mutine and graceful. They have four lovely children, bright, elfish, saucy, and full of life, like little imps in fairy tales. Then Henri, the other son, shakes hands with me. He is still unmarried; he frankly confesses that as he only gets sixty pounds a year as pasteur he is on the look out for an heiress, and as he is handsome and clever, and can make stirring appeals from the pulpit, he will perhaps succeed in his righteous endeavour. Besides the Byse family there are four young gentlemen boarders.

The bell now rings for dinner, and they all rush over hurry-scurry, laughing, talking, screaming, down into a long narrow room with a long narrow table. Monsieur Byse says grace, and Rosalie and Jeanne sit each at the head and foot of the table serving soup. They each have a cavalier servante, in the shape of a young gentleman who helps them and does a little spooning en même temps. The noise is very great, everybody talks, and talks loud, in order that Madame Byse may hear and be kept au courant what is going on.

Monsieur Gustave Byse sits opposite to me, tall, spare, solemn, not unlike a mediæval saint. He looks demurely into his soup plate, and asks me if I am an admirer of Dean Stanley. "Yes, a great admirer of his. He has a large broad mind and heart."

Madame Byse, who has not heard my answer, inquires what I have said. Three of the girls roar out my speech: general tumult, with hisses. Dean Stanley, Colenso, Père Hyacinthe, Ffoulke, &c., ought to be burnt alive, tied up, and put into scalding water. This is what Madame Byse says, much to my astonishment. She argues that all those men are worse than infidels.

"I suppose," I say saucily, "that we ought to believe everything. If a fat gorilla comes to an old lady and calls her Mother,' she must believe in her son."

Madame Byse looks cross, and the topic is changed. One of the

English young men having rather bluntly said that France had been beaten by the Germans, Monsieur Byse gets very red and answers "No. The French have not really been beaten, but betrayed." The little man gets very excited, his voice quivers, his arms and shoulders go up and down; he takes up a large carving knife, and pointing it at me with flashing eyes, declares that in five years from the present time the French will be at Berlin, and not a Prussian left alive.

After dinner we go into the drawing-room while the others are having games. I go and sit by Madame Byse. "I am so sorry, my dear, that you are staying with the Joulains; you will not be comfortable there; they are narrow-minded people, and go to Pasteur Faquin's. Pasteur Faquin is so jealous of my husband because he is so respected and has been here so long; and then he has of course more funerals and weddings to perform than Faquin. There is so much jealousy and envy in this town because we are popular and my girls have been left legacies. We get more boarders than we want, and Monsieur Faquin's house is as dull as ditch water. Madame Faquin is a cold, hard, little woman; herself, house, servants, and children move and act by rule. They have one English young man as boarder, and I hear that he is dying of ennui.”

While she is talking to me I watch the family. Monsieur Byse is reading La Gazette de Ruisseau les Bois, and gently sleeping over its dull contents. Clémence and Eugénie are doing "tatting" and helping the children with their bricks; Madame Gustave Byse is playing the piano and one of the boarders is turning the leaves of her music book. Monsieur Gustave is having an argument with an old lady, and shocking her by telling her that he does not believe in miracles or in the inspiration of the Bible.

Jeanne is flirting desperately with a newly-arrived young Englishman, who looks inclined to be smitten; her blue eyes are soft and languishing, and she gives him killing glances. A little behind her sits a victim; he looks miserable, and is scowling fearfully at the new arrival. She now and then turns round and looks at Jacques, that is the name of the melancholy victim, but he won't look up, and keeps his eyes steadfastly away from her deadly weapons.

Rosalie has a reputation for putting her foot and not her heart in her flirtations. She is very lively and funny. She is talking away with a curate from Yorkshire. This curate she has caricatured, and she shows me the drawing from behind his back. He has long bushy whiskers, is bald, has a retreating chin, and talks in a bleating tone; reminds one rather of an old goat with a bad cold in his head. Rosalie is making fun of him, but he is not aware of it, and every time that he turns up his pale blue eyes to her in a sentimental manner she looks mischievously away.

The evening proceeds on in this fashion, Madame Gustave plays good-naturedly on, so that the flirting and love-making can go on uninterruptedly. Henri is making himself agreeable to a handsome English widow, reputed to have eight hundred a year. Ten o'clock strikes and I bid good-night, promising to come early next morning to join them in a picnic in the forest.

The sun is shining brightly, the sky is blue, with lovely fleecy white clouds chasing each other merrily; there is a joyfulness in the air, as if birds, beasts, and men were happy in the mere sense of being alive. On reaching Monsieur Byse's house I see four char-à-bancs at the door; a dozen large hampers of food are being stowed under the seats, besides bottles of beer, wine, and water. The Byse family are at the door, children, bonnes, and the dog, a strong detachment of young men, French and English, admirers and ex-admirers of les Demoiselles Byse. These ladies are charmingly dressed in pale blue dresses, looped over petticoats of a somewhat darker shade, sashes and ribbons of delicate pink, and muslin hats of the Dolly Varden description, trimmed with little bouquets of forget-me-nots and blush roses. Rosalie and Jeanne look very pretty, and have on their conquering looks-a ghastly determination to kill some stout English heart.

The curate does his best to sit near Rosalie, but she cleverly "frustrates his knavish tricks," beckons to a friend of hers from Yorkshire, Mr. George Potter, a young man with white flowers in his buttonhole and a very red pimple on his nose, which he constantly smiles down upon, to sit by her side, which he gladly does. The Reverend Augustus Howe takes refuge by the side of Clémence Byse; at the other side of Rosalie sit two Frenchmen wearing eye-glasses; and they seem all eye-glass, for all the little expression they have is concentrated in that bit of glass.

Jeanne has her two admirers firmly seated by her side. Jacques looks melancholy; he is really in love, and Jeanne knows it, but she evidently does not care for him at all. Jacques is fearfully jealous of this new importation from England, Mr. William Courtenay. He has carried off all the honours at Baliol College, Oxford, and intends trying to get into Parliament later on. He is handsome, has a most gentlemanly appearance, and stands six foot two inches high. Jacques looks very uncomfortable and scowls. Jeanne will certainly get into trouble if she flirts too much. A Paddy, fresh from Cork, with round blue eyes and a quantity of bright red hair, rather like a haystack on fire, is winking pleasantly at the four girls. His heart is divided, and good-naturedly settles pro tem. upon Eugénie, the eldest and least good-looking girl of the party.

Henri and the widow are in close tête à tête, and I am seated by the side of a young Englishman, who has come to Ruisseau les Bois for

VOL. XXXIX.

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