market-place. In France there are flowers, as
well as vegetables and fruit, exposed for sale
on these occasions, and the scene on market-
day is not a little picturesque. Monsieur
wandered about among the stalls, listlessly
enough, till he came at last to one where
a young person, as the French idiom
expresses it, with a servant bearing a basket by
her side, stood with her back towards him,
cheapening some very nice-looking lettuces.

It is the custom, on the stage, for a gentleman
dressed in all respects as usual, to borrow
some friend's cloak for purposes of disguise,
and wrapping it round about him, to become
instantly unrecognisable by his most intimate
friends. Yet, in real life, a disguise is
a very difficult thing to achieve. Certain it
is, that in spite of the humble garments in
which this fair lettuce-cheapener was attired,
young Monsieur Grandal had no sooner set eyes
upon her back, than he could have sworn to her
confidently; and this even if he had not heard
her voice uttering such dulcet and harmonious
sounds (though it was only being exercised
about centimes and cabbages), that if
mademoiselle had known that Monsieur Pierre was
listening to her, she could not have spoken in a
more fascinating tone, or shown a keener power
of making a bargain. Perhaps she did know
that our young friend was in the neighbourhood;
but she certainly evinced the greatest
surprise when she turned round and saw him.
Meeting under such circumstances, these two
young people forgot for a moment their sulks,
and began to talk.

That conversation had important
consequences. The Strike, as far as Monsieur Grandal
was concerned, was entirely at an end. She
had abdicated. She had seen the error of her
ways. She had not thought seriously of life
before, but now it was obvious to her that it
really did behove the wife of a young man with
his way to make in the world, to be economical,
to dress plainly.

"No, no," cried her companion, generously,
ready now to concede on his side.

"Yes, yes," Mademoiselle Eugénie went on;
"to dress plainly, or, at any rate, to keep such
finery as she might possess for great occasions;
while, as to amusements, they were very well
now and then, at rare intervals; but the fact
was, they lost their attractiveness by too
frequent repetition. Domestic pleasures were,
doubtless, the best after all, and as to the
others, they should be reduced——"

"No, no," again remonstrated the happy
Pierre.

"Well, at most, the play three or four times
a year, if circumstances were very propitious."

Pierre Grandal could hardly believe his
ears. He saw himself now exonerated from
the bonds in which that dreadful Strike had held
him; for had not Eugénie fairly capitulated?
There was, in fact, now no longer any obstacle
to the marriage. Our ex-striker sought the
inevitable interview with the Père Beaucour, and,
that gentleman's consent having been obtained,
the necessary preliminaries to the great
ceremony were set about without delay. The
ceremonies which belong to, and which precede,
the solemnisation of matrimony in France are
numerous and elaborate. With these, however,
it is fortunately not needful to trouble the
reader. Enough for us. that they were all duly
observed, and that the sun shone upon the
bride to the heart's content of every one.

IV.

That honeymoon excursion which is so
inevitable a part of the English wedding, is by no
means considered equally indispensable on the
other side of the Channel. In bourgeois society
especially it is common enough for the bride and
bridegroom to spend the honeymoon at home
among their friends, receiving visits, repaying
them in due time, and in every way leading quite
a public life.

Our young couple then sat up in state, as
became their position, and the bourgeoisie, in
Sunday clothes, rallied round them with
compliments and set phrases adapted to the occasion,
such as the reader will find, if he likes to
look for them, in certain French publications on
the etiquette to be observed in connexion with
weddings.

The Grandal couple were strictly in order in
all these social matters, and young madame was
pronounced on all sides to be quite a model
bride, doing nothing—to use a familiar but not
very correct expression all day, and dressing
up in a succession of toilettes, which the initiated
pronounced to be "ravishing."

Well, for a time, this was all very satisfactory.
It was not to be expected that madame, in the
full glory of her new title, should trouble
herself about household matters, or should ever
make her appearance clad in any but the most
distinguished garments. Silks, and lace, and
the shawl of matronhood were indispensable.
The newly married lady would have disappointed
all her female friends if she had not given them
living evidence that the fashion prints in the
Gazette Rose were possibilities, not mere
brilliant chimeras emanating from the brain of
some art-genius.

But as time passed, and our young couple
began to settle down into the ordinary routine
of life, it began to strike Monsieur Pierre
Grandal as a curious circumstance, that his
young wife showed no symptoms of any intention
of descending from the position of bride
to that of housewife, which her recent studies
under our old friend Louise had fitted her to
fill. Not only did our newly made bourgeoise
altogether abstain from marketing, but she
seemed to think it beneath her to give even
the necessary directions to the servant on whom
this duty devolved, or to mix herself up in any
way whatsoever with the sordid cares of economical
housekeeping. Everything was left to
the bonne, and results more curious than
satisfactory ensued.

Nor was this all. Nothing could exceed the