the train was full of enthusiastic sight-seers.
Every minute particle of the horrible ceremony
was enumerated, discussed, commented
upon; but, I can conscientiously declare that
I did not hear one word, one sentiment,
expressed, which could lead me to believe
that any single object for which this fair had
been professedly made public, had been
accomplished.

This, of course, is, likewise, in the natural
depravity of the people. Verily, they are a
bad people these English! And, touching
the great open-air entertainment provided
for them by their rulers, this last-mentioned
Fair, they are the great phenomenon of the
world; being an effect entirely without a
cause! MR. GROTE is evidently mistaken
in supposing that the Athenian Government
never presented what is in itself so
moral and improving a spectacle, but always
inflicted capital punishment in private.
To believe that it was found necessary,
because of their corrupting influences, to make
executions private in New South Wales,
not long ago, would be to attain the height
of credulity. Shall we talk of any want
of real education, or of recognised open-air
entertainments, and decry these great moral
lessons, in a breath?

MY LITTLE FRENCH FRIEND.

MADEMOISELLE HONORINE is a teacher of her
own language in a cathedral town south of the
Loire, celebrated for the finest church and the
longest street in France; at least, so say the
inhabitants, who have seen no others. The
purest French is supposed to be spoken
hereabouts, and the reputation thus given has
for many years attracted hosts of foreigners
anxious to attain the true accent formerly in
vogue at the court of the refined Catherine
de Medici. It is true that this extreme grace
of diction and tone is not acknowleged by
Parisians; who, when they had a court, imagined
the best French was spoken in the capital
where that court resided; and they have
been long in the habit of sneering at the
pretensions of their rivals; who, however,
amongst foreigners, still keep their middle-
age fame.

Mademoiselle Honorine is not a native of
this remarkable town; and the French she
teaches is of a different sort, for she comes
from a far-off province, by no means so
remarkable for purity of accent. She is an
Alsatian, and her natal town is no other than
Vancouleurs, where the tree under which
Joan of Arc saw angels and became inspired,
once existed.

As may be imagined, Mademoiselle
Honorine is proud of this accident of birth, and
tells with much exultation of having, at the
age of fifteen, some thirty-five years ago, borne
the part of La Pucelle in the grand
procession to Domremy, formerly an annual
festival. She relates that she attracted universal
attention on that occasion, chiefly from the
circumstance of her hair, which is now of
silvery whiteness, having been equally so
then, much to the admiration of all who
beheld her.

"I was always," she remarks, with satisfied
vanity, " celebrated for my hair, and I had at
all times a high colour and bright eyes; so
that, though some people preferred the beauty
of my sisters, I always got more partners than
they at all our fêtes. It is true they all
married, and no one proposed to me, except old
Monsieur de Monzon, who suffered from the
gout and a very bad temper; but I had no
respect for his character, and though he was
rich, and I might have been a châtelaine,
instead of such a poor woman as I am, still
I refused him, for I preferred my liberty; and
that, also, was the reason I left my uncle's
domain, because I like independence. We
used, my aunt, my uncle, and I, to spend most
of our time at his country place, going out
every day lark-catching, which we did with
looking-glasses: they held the glasses and
lured the birds, while I was ready with the
net to throw over them. My uncle, however,
was always scolding me for talking and
frightening the birds away; so I got tired of
this amusement and of the dependence in
which I lived."

The independence preferred by
Mademoiselle Honorine to lark-catching and
snubbing, consists in giving lessons to the
English. As, of late, we islanders have been
as hard to catch as the victims of the looking-
glasses, her occupation is not lucrative; and
although she sometimes devotes her energies
to the arts, in the form of twisted-coloured
paper tortured into the semblance of weeping
willows and nondescript flowers, yet these
specimens of ingenuity do not bring in a very
large revenue. In fact, her income, when
I knew her, could not be considered enormous;
for, to pay house-rent, board, washing, and
sundry little expenses, she possessed twelve
francs a-month: yet with these resources,
nevertheless, she contrived to do more
benevolent and charitable acts than any person
I ever met with. She has always halfpence
for the poor's bag at church—always farthings
for certain regular pensioners, who expect her
donation as she passes them, at their begging
stations, on her way to her pupils. Moreover,
on New-year's day, she has always the means
of making the prettiest presents to a friend
who for years has shown her countenance,
and put little gains in her way.

She obtains six francs per month from a
couple of pupils, whose merit is as great in
receiving, as hers in giving, lessons. These
are two young workwomen who desire to
improve their education, and daily devote to
study the only unoccupied hour they possess.
From six o'clock till seven, Mademoiselle
Honorine, therefore, on her return from the
five o'clock mass—which she never misses
—calls at the garret of these devotees, and