upon the head, by saying that when the
common run of Englishmen are as polite, as
respectful, as full of domestic affection—pray
do not jump off your chair at the reproach—
and as steady supporters of public morality
and decent appearances as the same class of
Frenchmen are—then and not before,
Englishwomen will gloriously prove their capabilities,
and have a chance of showing you what they
can do.

LITTLE MARI'S BETROTHAL.

FROM THE DANISH.

I AM an officer in the Danish service, and
was twice quartered in Angel, a place little
known. Life in the house of my old host,
Johan Lanesen, was free and easy. By means
of the glass door which led from my room
into the kitchen, the family were able to keep
an eye upon my proceedings all the day long;
and in the evening, when I lighted my candle,
an inquisitive cow would put her head in at
the low window to see what I was about.
If my servant forgot to close the door of the
bridal chamber—a large room in which he
had taken up his abode among chests and
wardrobes, and all kinds of woman's apparel,
and linen and bedding destined for the dowry
of the daughter of the house, and dried herbs
and long strings of onions—a hen and her
brood, who dwelt there with him, came
tripping into my room, to pick up the crumbs
that strewed the floor. The maid-servants
never hesitated to come in to fetch anything
they might want; although I might at the
time be in a costume in which one does not
generally appear before ladies. But, on the
other side, it was not taken amiss if I passed
through the "daily room," in the berths
round which the whole household slept, and
happened to find some one of the family in
the deepest négligée. Such as the house was,
we could keep no secrets from each other.
Old Johan could see each time I took a
dollar out of my trunk with a secret sigh;
and I often saw him, with a self-satisfied grin,
pile dollar upon dollar in his oaken chest.
He was well to do in the world, the old
fellow; but no one would have guessed it by
his appearance: his clothes were full of
patches, and the bowl of his inseparable
companion, his pipe, was maintained in a very
precarious state of existence by the aid of a
bit of cobbler's thread. His old farmstead
was not without signs of decay, yet Johan
Lanesen was the richest man in the village,
and might easily have built a house twice as
fine as any of his neighbours.

Johan was a widower, and his family
consisted of but one daughter, Little Mari, of
whom he was not unreasonably proud.

"Do you see?" said he, "Mari is only
nineteen years old; yet she manages the
whole house quite as well as her mother did
before her."

''But how long will you be allowed to keep
her? No doubt the young men also think
well of her."

Indeed, Mari was very pretty.

"Oh, no, there's no clanger of that," said
he, with a look as if he knew all about it.
"To us they will not be likely to come; and
if a good one should drop in—well, then,
in God's name, I am very near three-score,
and may take my rest now."

As to Mari, she seemed to be thinking of
everything but love. In the morning, when
I was wrapt in the sweetest sleep, I was
awoke by loud voices, and the first thing I
beheld, on opening my eyes, was the beam
above my head shaking as if about to crush
me. In the kitchen, there was a beating, and
pounding, and clattering of pattens, and
singing. This was Mari, who fastened the
churn-stick to the beam of the ceiling, and was
endeavouring to combine the useful and the
agreeable, and to solve the difficult problem
of churning and polking in pattens at the same time,
to the music of her own voice.

In Johan Lanesen's house eternal good
humour reigned. The maids sang to their
work, and Mari stirred the dumplings to the
tune of "Den tappre Landsoldat," (the brave
land-soldier) which she had learnt from my
servant. Once in a way the song was
interrupted, and the dish rested on her knees,
while she instructed the other maidens. Then
the singing would recommence in lively
strains, and thus it went on until the dumplings
were ready and the pork soup dished
up. Hans, Asmus and the other people
were called in; and, with a smile that showed that
she was pleased with her own proficiency in
the culinary art, little Mari placed a bowl
before me of melted pork fat, with dumplings
of a size and consistency which would have
made them dangerous missiles in the hands
of an angry mob. After the soup came
another dish which very nearly brought me
to despair." "Well, this is fat!" I exclaimed,
searching in vain for some fleshy fibres among
the mass of yellow fat. "Ye-e-s," said little
Mari, placing her arms a-kimbo, and looking
at the roast with an air which seemed to say:
"it is not bad!"

But it was not of Mari's singing and cooking
I meant to speak, but of her betrothal.

It was Sunday, and she was returning from
church. As it had rained, she had put on
a pair of wooden shoes, that contrasted
strangely with her fine white stockings and
the rest of her dress; which was of modern
cut and of town fashion. All the young people
had been at church; and my host, who had
remained at home, had in the meanwhile
received a visitor. The stranger was a tall
man, in a long grey frock-coat, and with a
meerschaum pipe in his mouth; he was leaning
with both his arms on the table, speaking
to Lanesen.

"No, Clau Tram," said my host; "that
fellow is not a husband for Mari. Why,
his stock cannot be worth more than a couple of