attention to the row of shops on his right, the
stranger will at once perceive that he is in the
neighbourhood of a great French cemetery.
From the first floor to the ground, arranged
in patterns the most fantastic, and in colours
the most grateful, are hung thousands of
immortelles, or circular rolls of baked and dried
flowers. And, judging by the brisk trade that
is going on, the stranger will not think that
the supply exceeds the demand by a single
immortelle. Here is a grey old man chaffering
for a black one, which he examines
minutely, slings upon his arm, pays a few sous
for, and goes tottering on his way. There is
a spare pale man, in deep mourning, with a
pot of roses under one arm, holding a little
child, also in black, by the hand, and examining
a white immortelle most anxiously—the
child playing with those near her the while.
His story is plain enough to the coldest heart.
It is one of a home made desolate, while yet
the warmth of youth and hope were about it;
it is a story often read and known, unhappily
—yet which we all read again when the
opportunity offers—because there is a fascination
in the strong sympathy it arouses, as we enjoy
the tears we shed at mimic grief upon the
stage. The pale man has bought the white
ring meantime, and slings it, with a sad kind
of playfulness, about his child's arm—and they
go their way.

A hearty, lively bonne approaches the
immortelle magazine. She looks in a very
business-like manner at the varieties of eternal
emblems about her, as she would look at a
cap-ribbon. Some of them have long pious
sentences worked in black flowers upon a
white or yellow ground. These are probably
more expensive than the plain offerings. Yet
the bonne examines them, and finally
becomes the excited purchaser of one, on which
the words "à ma tante" are legibly worked.
But this bargain has been effected only after
long and vivacious discussions with the young
man who accompanies the bonne. The affair
once terminated, however, the lady's obvious
lover politely relieves her of the trouble of
carrying the offering "à ma tante," and gravely
loops it upon his arm. Thus laden, he escorts
his mistress to take refreshment, and then to
the grave of her aunt. Then a number of
very business-looking people become
purchasers, and with their grave offerings hanging
upon their arms, go chattily on their way.

But there are grave decorations, or pious
emblems suited to the purses of all. Thus,
while the little grisette seriously trips to
Montmartre with the simple yellow immortelle,
the flourishing tradesman's wife carries
with her to the cemetery a pot ot choice
flowers, and a cross covered with green leaves,
upon which white roses are studded at
intervals. A stout gentleman of fifty may be
seen toiling on his way, with a flower-pot
under each arm—a young man is loaded with
garden-tools—a little girl carries a plaster
cast of the infant Samuel—a little boy bears a
white figure of the Virgin. All are on their
way to the cemetery. Some are laughing and
talking—some are in mourning and are very
grave—a few, from whose mourning the
linendraper's creases have not yet worn off,
are crying as they go on their weekly errand.

Thus, every Sunday, the choked cemetery
of Montmartre receives its thousands of
pilgrims—nearly every pilgrim bearing his
offering to the grave he visits. There is little
that is remarkable about the cemetery,
considered as a garden, or viewed with an eye to
the picturesque. It appears to have been
laid out in long, straight walks, intersecting
one another at frequent intervals, and usually
at right angles. Thus the groups of graves
are generally in the form of oblongs; and
visitors are enabled to examine the stones
and altars very conveniently. And this
examination is not without its interest. The
curious expressions of grief are often touching;
sometimes, to the cold eye of a stranger,
altogether ludicrous. The wealthy friends of
the dead have raised small chapels above the
family vaults; and herein may be seen, in
miniature, all the decorations of a Catholic
church—even to the stained windows behind
the altars, and the silver or gold candlesticks;
the splendid vases, and the more costly images
of the Virgin. Curtains are drawn before the
doors of some of these chapels; and behind
these curtains the stranger does not seek to
intrude, for possibly the relatives of the dead
are praying. The graves of the poor are
generally marked by huge, black, wooden
crosses, upon which immortelles, in various
stages of decay, from the bright crome offering
of to-day, to the shrivelled emblem ot three
months ago, swing in the wind. Other graves
are little gardens, where the earliest flowers
of the spring and the latest autumnal blossoms
may be always found. These are not the
least interesting graves at Montmartre.

The children's graves, however, are at once
the most curious and the most touching.
Here are the faded playthings, the withered
wreath worn at the confirmation, the coral
necklace that was about the little one's neck
when it walked in procession from its school
—the winner of a school prize, a prize not the
least sweet of those that lie in the human way
from childhood to infirmity. There is very
little pride of grief perceptible in all these
strange aids to memory of the dead. And when
(as on any Sunday at Montmartre he may)
the foreign visitor suddenly comes upon
two people—the mother in tears, and the
father sadly proceeding with his work upon
a grave—watches till they are gone, then
reads that the earth below contains the body
of their child, and then notes the fresh
offering that has been deposited, and the
effect of the tender hands that have wandered
over the spot, he cannot see in all this,
even in its childish expressions, anything at
all ludicrous. These are cares for the
grave, churchyard sentiments, not liked nor