least it would be so if François the gardener,
and his long-armed wife, Anatole, and his
violent child, Ignace, would not keep
knocking at the outer gate which leads into
their tool-yard, because they forget either
the watering-pot, or the ladder, or the pail.
François himself I am content to see arranging
my flower-beds, but why I am forced to
receive Anatole and her son I cannot comprehend.
Ignace, sitting down in his blouse at
my open window, puts his muddy sabots
inside, beating an opera air with the loose
heels on my wainscot, and staring at me with
large round black eyes. I pretend not to
observe him, when his father suddenly collars
him; and, in the midst of cries and struggles,
he is hurled into a flower-bed at a distance,
with a " gamin! " to him, and a " pardon!"
to me. Anatole has now an excuse to speak;
and, planting herself among my shrubs, apologises
for her son, who, she informs me, though
so tall, is only five years of age—therefore, what
manners can one expect? Her daughter
Seraphine is twelve, and to-morrow she is to
make her first communion—an event which
she announces with a proud air. She
proposes that Seraphine shall visit me in all the
finery which neighbours and friends have
contributed to render her as smart as all the
other young girls who are to walk in the
procession of the Fête-Dieu on Sunday. I
have no objection, and the young lady accordingly
comes. I wonder how she will be
dressed, as I know that Francois has not a
large fortune. The papa of Seraphine, in fact,
has fifteen pence a day for attending to my
garden and that across the way; into
which, I was about to say, the two other
windows of my salon open. He is also
gardener to one of some acres, which is
entered at the end of my lane, and where I
am permitted to stroll by the propriétaire
of both cottage and castle, a
retired tradesman of the neighbouring seaport.
He comes every evening from town to walk in
this garden to see to his statues; for he
has placed little wooden figures in every
available nook of his rural retreat. There
is a hermitage among the pear trees "able
to draw men's envy upon man." It is very
close, and dark, and damp, at all seasons, as
most hermitages are. It is fitted up with
rickety chairs and tables, and has very
narrow dirty windows, almost eclipsed with
thick foliage. A honeysuckle embowers the
door, which insists on overpowering the
heavy masses of dark ivy that nearly cover
the thatched roof. A triumph of art of M.
Poigné-Bandel, for so is my propriétaire named,
appears at the door of this retreat. He has
sculptured, and painted in the colours of life,
a troubador playing the guitar, and a
damsel holding a black bottle and a glass.
The pair stand on pedestals, and peep out
from the honeysuckle invitingly. There are
times when the perfume of the flowers is
scarcely to be distinguished from the odour of
cigars within the holy anchorite's cell, when
M. Poigné-Bandel and ses amis repair to this
spot to forget the cares of commerce on
Sabbath eves. I observe in an empty green-house
two white figures propped up awaiting the
enlivening brush of Monsieur P.-B. They
will, when painted, be stuck amongst the
trees. One is an undraped nymph, who is
to have blue eyes, a high colour, and black
hair, to judge by the beginnings. The other
is the figure-head of a vessel, bought at sale.
It represents a fine, gay, bold-faced villain of
a pirate, with pistols in his belt: his costume
will be very showy when he is ready. In
a zigzag walk, which runs up the hill on
which this garden is arranged, stands, under
an apple-tree, a finely delineated figure of a
priest reading intently in his prayer-book,
solemnly surrounded by fir, box, and cypress
trees. I am fond of this walk. Nothing can
be more ingenious than the way all the paths
are cut, so as to vary the pleasure of the
stroll; and the profusion of flowers and
fruit-trees, curiously intermixed, is quite
amazing.

There are four terraces: the highest is
sombre and severe, with fir-trees on one side
and hornbeam on the other; the next lower
down runs between gooseberry-bushes and
cabbages; interspersed with blue-bells and
pinks, and a sprinkling of sweet-william,
London-pride, bachelor's-buttons; with stocks
and rhododendrons at intervals. Then a
warm retired walk, where the bee-hives are
—and here I pause, for I have lately heard
some very odd stories of bees. They are
swarming for the second time, and François
does not go home to dinner, as he must
watch them.

I wonder if François knows that it is
necessary, when the master of a house dies,
to go to the hive, knock against it with a
door-key and tell the bees—if you do not
they will all be found dead next day. I
wonder if he has observed that bees always
swarm on Christmas-eve, exactly as if it
were Midsummer? I wonder, too, if he
knows that, if one plants a hop and a bean at
the foot of the same pole, one will persist in
twining one way and the other the reverse,
do what you will to guide them both in the
same path. I have asked him about the
bees, and he confirms my belief, for it
happened in his own family when his father
died. " Every one," said he, " was in confusion,
and no one thought of going to tell the
bees,—they were all dead next morning!
But you will soon see," he added, "something
curious, for they have swarmed in the
neuvaine of the Holy Sacrament, and it
invariably happens, when that is the case,
that they make a beautiful chapel in the
hive, with a dome exactly such as is made in
the church on the fête day. Oh they are
very good and pious animals, and can't
bear noise or quarrelling." He went on to
tell me that it any one quarrels in a family,