or for robes of silk. This was the People's
festival; and they, the People, pure and simple,
were here in force. This was one of the three
days in the year when Jacques Bonhomme was in
his glory, and had the best of it. He might come
in a clean blouse, or in a dirty blouse, or in his
shirt-sleeves; but he was welcome to the show
for nothing. So many hundred thousands of
francs were set aside every year to amuse him,
and to buy him toys, and to make him forget
his rights. He forgot them, for the nonce; but
the paternal government who turned showman
on Jacques's behalf, found it impossible to make
of the whole year one long July, and to have a
festival every day. The result of which solution
of continuity was, that when it wasn't July, and
there were no fireworks, dancing-dogs, and open-
air theatres, and work was scarce, and bread
dear, Jacques Bonhomme would turn on the
paternal government, suddenly remember his
rights, and rend his rulers in pieces.

Lily thought it very kind indeed of the good
gentlemen, whoever they were, who had
provided this sumptuous spectacle, and charged
nothing for it. She had a vague idea, from
some staring placards she had read on the walls,
that the Prefect of the Department of the Seine
had something to do with this grand merry-
making. He must be a very good man, she
thought. Perhaps it was his birthday.

She had eaten and drunk nothing since breakfast;
so, calling to mind that she was hungry,
she dined frugally on two sous' worth of gingerbread
and an apple. She had even the hardihood
to stop one of the men who wore the round towers
strapped on their backs, and, accosting him as
"Monsieur," asked him for a glass of cocoa.

The particular merchant she chanced to
patronise displayed considerable splendour in
the fittings of his establishment. His round
tower was covered with crimson cotton velvet,
hooped with gilt foil paper, and embowered in
his flags was a little brazen eagle with
outstretched wings.

He frothed up the cocoa so for Lily, that the
beading bubbles on the rim sparkled in the
evening sun like diamonds, and presented her
the goblet with an air.

"Drink," he said, "belle dame. It is the
nectar of the gods."

It wasn't anything of the sort. It was merely
so much Spanish liquorice boiled down with a
little sarsaparilla, but the merchant had such a
winning way with him that, had he asseverated
that the Nabob of Arcot's diamond was dissolved
in his cocoa, he might have found those to believe
him.

"How much, monsieur?" asked Lily, when
she had drunk.

"To you," the merchant replied, with a bow
and a flourish, " one sou. A pint of cocoa and
a quart of froth, all for five centimes."

Lily paid him. Straightway he whisked out
a napkin which hung from his cestus, gave the
goblet an extra polish, frothed it again, and
handed it to Lily.

"Drink again, belle dame," he said. "For
this I charge nothing. It is my humble offering
to youth and beauty. And I declare that
had not my family, through political misfortunes,
supped deeply of misery, and were not my
old grandmother, là-bas, down yonder in la
Sologne in misery, sur la paille, I would have
made you pay nothing for the first."

Although the girl's thirst was assuaged, she
did not like to offend the hospitable merchant,
and so half emptied the goblet he offered her.
Then she thanked him and curtseyed, and turned,
and was soon lost in the crowd.

"I salute you," cried he of the round tower,
looking after her retreating figure. "Belle
dame, I am at your feet. Pauvre petite," he
continued, polishing up his cups, " she is too
young and too pretty to be wandering in this
tohubohu, quite alone. But, bah! she is safer
here than on the Boulevard of the Italiens. The
blouses will do her no harm. A la fraîche! faites-
vous servir! à la fraîche!" and he went on his
way, jangling his cups and tinkling his bells.

It was nearly eight o'clock, but bright and
mellow daylight yet. Lily had been struggling
against temptation for a long time, but she
could now resist it no longer. She had never
seen one before in her life. She must go inside
and see one—a show.

No, not the educated seal, the pictured
resemblance of the monster on the cartoon outside
the booth, where he resided, terrified her. Not
the Oriental menagerie either: the roaring she
could hear through the canvas, the squeals and
yelps as the keeper plied his switch, and the
acrid odour, peculiar to wild beast shows,
appalled her more than the terrific paintings,
much larger than life, of the panther of Java,
the gigantic baboon of Sumatra, the hyæna of
Abyssinia, the crocodile of the Nile, and the boa
constrictor of Seringapatam, by means of which
the enterprising proprietor of the Oriental
menagerie strove to attract patronage. The
grand concourse of the combat of animals, where
a wretched old white horse was to be baited by
sundry mastiffs, she likewise avoided.

But the wax-work show! the royal and
imperial exhibition of wax-work of Signor
Ventimillioni (from Milan), she must see that. It cost
ten sous to see this show, but Lily paid them.

Signor Ventimillioni himself took her half-
franc. He was a tall, sallow man, with a coal-
black beard, and wore a velvet waistcoat of
Scotch plaid, but was otherwise attired as a
Roman emperor. He stared very long and very
impudently at Lily. What was there about the
child, that every one stared at her so?

She drew aside a curtain that veiled the
entrance, and entered. She started back with a
shriek at the first object she saw. It was a
colossal gendarme in a monstrous cocked-hat
and jack-boots. His face, fringed with huge
peaked moustaches and chin-tuft, was pale as
death. His eyes glared horribly with a fixed
and stony gaze. In one gauntleted hand he
brandished a gleaming sabre. He looked like
one of those ominous officers of the Convention
Lily had seen in pictures, who came to conduct