glass close by me, which they called a croisée,
thus enabling me to contemplate the
landscape. Soon I perceived a pleasant group of
cottages, and a farm. There we halted again.
The infant, and what belonged to her, vacated
the place and got out.

"You return by me to-morrow ? " asked
the driver.

" Or the day after.I shall make a
promenade; my infant also. I shall dine, I shall
sup, and then we shall sleep like two wooden
shoes. My wife sends me here, because
she says the air of the country is good for the
health. Good day, Messieurs; — to see you
again!"

I lifted my hat to the mademoiselle with
the ear-rings, and the covered cart once more
trundled on.

"How very ridiculous! " said I to myself;
for the gravity and matter-of-course air of the
grocer was a significant point. " How many
Englishwomen would thus send their husbands
out to grass, themselves stopping at home to
fag at the shop and the warehouse? How
many Englishmen, out for two or three days'
' air of the country,' would be bothered with
a two-year-old bantling, male or female,
ear-ringed, or un-ear-ringed ? "

Another little incident will illustrate the
Rights of French Women.

Whilst taking a stroll through the forest of
Guînes, I observed several piles of faggot-wood
of a peculiar construction. Each faggot
was about seven feet long, and of a conical
shape like an enormous extinguisher, the
point being formed by a tolerably stout stake.
It will be seen that these, laid neck and heels
together, pack as closely as our own cylindrical
ones; perhaps more closely. So I thought
that was the " wherefore."  But we often
fancy too hastily that we have fathomed the
reason of all which we see.

Out of the forest, I was returning homewards ;
and, looking across country, a feeling
came over me as if I were about to have a fit,
or be subject to hallucinations. For there,
down below, were half-a-dozen of these very
faggots walking along, upright on end, with
the big part of the extinguisher raised in the
air. Imagine six gigantic peg-tops steadily
proceeding to the nearest town. I could not
see much of their small end, because they
were travelling along a roadway, which would
be called a lane at home, but which had no
hedge or boundary, other than its depression
in the earth, and was, in fact, only an exaggerated
wheel-rut.

Soon they stopped, all still upright. My
eyes had not deceived me, and I took courage.
I approached ; again they moved forward.
Again they halted, and I overtook them. It
was the height of absurdity : each large heavy
faggot screened its bearer — a woman. All
were now standing at ease. The faggot was
slung to the shoulders in such a way, that
when the bearer-ess stood upright, the peak
of the extinguisher touched the ground. The
ladies' legs were posted in such a position, that
with the toe of the peg-top they formed
perfect tripods. It was not exactly the
attitude which Madame Michaux, that
accomplished mistress of deportment, would have
recommended to her advanced pupils, as a
drawing-room position. None of Sir Thomas
Lawrence's beauties would have consented to
" sit " thus. Nevertheless, it was a posture
of repose. Good-humour shone from every
face, gabble flowed from every tongue. As
I passed, I had a " Bonjour, Monsieur ; "
but all the rest of the conversation was
as if every one of them was trying which
could repeat fastest the celebrated Christmas
forfeit,

"Three blue beads in a blue bladder,
Rattle beads, rattle bladder."

Soon, with a hitch, the tripods were broken
up, and I beheld six animated faggots wending
their way to Guînes, perhaps to cook my very
own dinner.

"Now," thinks I, ' if I could have conjured
out of the earth half-a-dozen donkeys, while
those females were practising their ' blue
beads,' and have put the faggots upon them,
leaving the human carriers unencumbered by
a knapsack of brushwood, what would have
been the consequence ? Instead of getting a
' Bonjour, Monsieur,' I should have been torn
to pieces as an unprincipled reformer,
meddling with the Rights of Women. What
business had I to take the bread out of their
mouths, by calling unnecessary donkeys into
existence? How were the ladies to pass
their time, if there were no wood to carry,
and they were not to carry it ? It was
their pleasure so to work; and work they
would, even if they had to massacre all
the donkeys in the world, and eat them
afterwards."

Whenever a Madame Thomas Paine advocates
the Rights of Woman in France, her first
position will be that their special right is TO
WORK; and woe be to the man who tries to
prevent it!

A DISH OF VEGETABLES.

FROM the moss to the palm-tree, the
number of contributions made by the
vegetable world towards the sustenance of man,
would make a bulky list of benefactors. We
have not room to advertise them all, still
less to talk about them all. It may be
well, however, and only grateful in us as
human beings and recipients of vegetable
bounty, to do a little trumpeting in honour
of the great families of plants, which have
contributed with more especial liberality
towards the colonisation of the world by
man.

For example, there is, in the first place, the
POTATO family, famous for its liberal principles,
and the wide sphere over which its influence
is spread. The members of this family, with