standing; and turning the mould upside
down, deposited its contents on a patch of
short grass, in the shape of a jet-coloured
cake. The next did the same; and so on,
one after the other, till the plot of grass was
covered with well-shaped bricks of turf to
dry. They wore but slight clothing, and were
all dressed alike in a shirt, and a coarse cloth
coat and breeches, with their legs and arms
naked from the knees and elbows. The
youngest boy came last, with his tray of dark
custard, and I was vexed to see so delicate
and prepossessing a youth employed in such
grimy and unsightly labour. I spoke to him.
He answered with propriety, and with a less
broad patois than is prevalent in the district.
Amongst other questions, I asked him which
were the best holes for pike and eels, and in
what bed of reeds I should be most likely to
shoot a bittern or two. He readily answered
that if I would come on Monday afternoon, or
fête day, he would not be so busy as at present,
and he would ask his uncle to let him show
me the favourite haunt of the birds, and would
also take me to the pond where still remained
uncaught the monster eel which had towed a
boat after it the last time it was hooked, till
it broke away and dived into the depths of
unfathomable mud. I was soon taken
with the grace and spirit of my informant.
Both Boisson himself and the two elder lads,
as they trotted backwards and forwards with
their moulds of turf, grinned in such a strange
and meaning way whilst I was chatting with
their junior companion, that I looked hard to
discover the reason, and was surprised and
displeased at being obliged to conclude beyond
doubt that the couple of turf-making lads, by
their shape and movements, were neither
more nor less than women, specially dressed
for this kind of work. The labourers, in fact,
were André Boisson's daughters. The boy
seemed to read my thoughts in my countenance,
for he blushed deeply, cast his eyes on
the ground, and was silent.

All further awkwardness on my part was
suddenly cut short by the voices of Lemaire
and Son Boisson's wife, shouting to me from
the Folly to enter the house. My friend's tone
and gestures told me plainly that it would be
considered as an affront if I refused to do so.
Boisson junior (who could not be less than
fifty years of age, with a careworn, under-fed,
aguish countenance) suspended his turf-shovelling,
and said that he would go with me too,
and hear what the doctor thought of his
father. We crossed the trembling plank, and
entered the house.

A large square day-room received us. It
had a substantial pavement of solid stone,
instead of the usual floor of beaten clay. A
fire, composed of flax-rubbish and turf, was
burning brightly on the hearth, to boil the
supper soup in its iron pot. From the upper
part of the broad mantelpiece hung a curtain
of gay chintz,; and beyond the inner boundary
of this a straw-bottomed arm-chair was placed
for me, as the seat of honour. The greater
part of one side of the room was filled with
shelves, on which were ranged for show,
never for use, from generation to
generation, except on some most extraordinary
fête, a number of coarse, gaudy-patterned
plates and dishes, with salad-bowls and coffee-
basins intermixed. Besides these, ornament
there was none; for the cooking utensils
were neither sufficiently numerous nor brightly
kept to answer their frequent purpose of
decoration, nor were the dairy vessels, a tub of
drinkable water, a ducking gun, and three or
four nets. The prevailing character of the
place was studied meanness and artificial
poverty. They had money, no doubt,
somewhere in the house; but every pains was
taken to remove all suspicion of its existence.
I sat a few moments, and said a few words
for form's sake, when Lemaire proposed that
we should visit the sick man.

His room, also on the ground floor,
contained three beds, all naked and curtainless.
One of these three assembled beds belonged
to André and his wife; another to their two
daughters; on the third, the furthest from
the door, the dying old man was stretched on
his back, with flushed face, glassy eyes, and
other symptoms of approaching dissolution.
His mind and speech remained still unaffected.
He seemed pleased at my visit, until he was
told that I was an Englishman, when he
turned his face to the wall and muttered to
himself. Soon he abruptly addressed Dr.
Lemaire, and said,—

"I do not feel so ill as I did; I am a little
better; but I suppose it will do no harm if I
send for the curé. I think I should like to
speak to the curé."

"Oh yes; let the curé come as soon as you
like. We shall see how you are going on
tomorrow."

"Shall I call at your house for a prescription,
this evening," asked André.

"Come to-morrow morning," answered
Lemaire in an undertone, "and let me know
how matters proceed. But—" and a significant
shrug of the shoulders was the only
phrase which finished the sentence. The
doctor felt his patient's pulse, bade him good
bye, and promised to see him soon.

"I really think," said Lemaire to André, as
we left the house, "that some of you had
better tell the curé. I would call myself on
our way home, but I am going round another
way to see old Louis Lefebvre, who is nearly
as ill as your father."

Next day, Lemaire told me that Boisson the
father had died early that morning; and that
through some blunder on André's part, the
curé had arrived at the Folly too late to
confess the sick man, having paid his visit to
Lefebvre first, considering that he stood in
the most urgent need of his services. On the
Thursday following, in accordance with the
French habit of early interment after decease,
Boisson was laid in the ground in the parish