called Peyrot at Bigorre, Petire (Pierre)
among the Basques. When hunger enters
a cottage, Peyrot aux bas rouges— that is,
with naked legs reddened with cold— enters
also. He sits between the master and
mistress of the hut at their penurious meal;
he struggles with the perishing child who
tends the daily lessening flock; he follows
the maidens to their chamber, where they
literally lie down to rest with Famine.
When Peyrot is in a house, the time has
come for a final supreme struggle. The
father works with desperate energy; the
mother kindles fire on the extinguished
hearth; the last cow is sold; the poor
furniture parted with; and at last, perhaps—
perhaps— the dreaded guest is exorcised.
Fanciful as the legend is, there is about it a
sad ring of truth. The reign of the three
R.'s will, by-and-bye extend itself even to
those remote old-world corners, and their
ghosts and phantoms will flee. May Peyrot,
the red-legged, share their fate, and may
the reality of which he is the type, be
banished with him into the land of shadows!

THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.
A YACHTING STORY.

CHAPTER I. THE HEROINES.

ST. ARTHUR'S-ON-THE-SEA was a bathing
town combined with a packet station: and
a harbour that, to any one looking from
the inland hills, seemed like a loop of
delicate ribbon floating on the water. It
was a granite district, and the abundance
of plaster, frosting over villas as though
they were bride-cakes, made the place
glitter and shine in the glare of the sun,
like an Italian bay.

It was also a yachting station, and two
clubs, the ROYAL ST. ARTHUR'S, and the
ROYAL BURGEE, frowned and scowled at
each other from opposite sides of the jetty.
The ST. ARTHUR'S was select, and though
founded on a broad platform, by-and-bye
began to black-ball various local persons as
"low" and " not the sort of person." But
the famous rejection of Mr. Littlejohn, the
solicitor, whom every one knew, and whom
many of the " fine" party— men, for
instance, like Foljambe and Knox, ruthless
"beaners"— were willing to admit, brought
matters to a crisis. Then it was determined
to found THE ROYAL BURGEE.

Once every year a regatta was given by
both clubs, conjointly— an act, however, in
which there was no amity or cordiality. It
was imposed by sheer necessity, as neither
could have separately borne the cost of
entertaining. They gave plates and prizes
together; but somehow the St. Arthur's
contrived to bear off any honour or profit
that was to be got out of the strangers of
rank, much as a lady of condition will
ignore the client to whose party she has
undertaken to ask guests. The
distinguished strangers always chose the St.
Arthur's, when offered honorary membership.
They were " put up" to the matter
almost before they touched shore by
the Reverend Doctor Bailey, who was for
"keeping the club pure, sir," and threw
out, in a careless parenthesis, that " the
other place" was " a kind of poor thing, you
know," mostly " brokers and the
shop-keepers," well-conducted and respectable,
and all that; but scarcely the sort of thing.
"And it is gratifying for me," continued
the doctor, a very enormous clergyman, six
feet two in height, and portly and weighty
without absolute corpulence, " to see persons
of that class, banding themselves together
for rational relaxation. If they want their
club, why shouldn't they have it? and
Heaven speed their work; and I am told it
is exceedingly well-conducted, but it is
scarcely the place, you see. You are a
man of the world, Sir John."

The Reverend Doctor Bailey, thus
mentioned, was vicar of this important and
fast-rising watering-place. In appearance, he
was a very remarkable-looking man of
great height; he had a vast broad chest; a
flourishing umbrella; a broad-brimmed
hat, and an unhealthily florid face; lips
that were made for sauces and wines; with
a high stiff wall of a white tie, which came
up at the side of his neck, and seemed bent
on cutting off his ears. The hat lay very
far back, and the Reverend Doctor Bailey,
stalking along, his head back, his " snub"
nose to the clouds, was as well-known an
object as the spire of the church he served.
That church, with a wise forethought, he
had accepted when the place was a poor one.
With a true instinct as to its future, he had
asked his patron, Lord Frogmore, for the
living, and it had been worked up into a
most profitable " berth." He was a good
preacher, or had the reputation of being one,
which did as well; and during the season
the doctor contributed much to its success
by his genteel sermons, in which there was
none of that vulgar conventicle language,
which he called mere " low poking the
fire," and which he said fretted unnecessarily
the nice and good people who
came to hear him. " Not that I would