or the trimming of a bonnet, keeping apart
those colours that cannot come together without
quarreling. Thus she would do well to
trim a yellow bonnet with violet or blue, and
a green bonnet with rose, red, or white
flowers, and to follow the same general idea
in grouping the colours of a dress.

Contrast of rich colour is familiar to us in
the dress of soldiers, and it has an economic
use. The soldier in his bright uniform of
green and yellow, blue and scarlet, or
whatever else it be, will seem to be well
clothed when all the seams of his coat,
perhaps, are white, and he is really thread-
bare; for if the colours be but well contrasted
they will set each other off and remain to the
last intensified. Just in the same way a
civilian may wear in the summer a black coat
that is not new, and over white trowsers it
will be made to look by contrast excellent as
to its colour. But let him buy in the winter
a new pair of black trowsera and put them
on: the old coat causes them to seem fearfully
black and glossy, and is made by them
in return to look really much older and
whiter than it is.

The same ideas M. Chevreul carries into the
business of house-furnishing. Dark paper-
hangings he proscribes, as absorbing too
much light, red and violet as damaging the
colour of the skin, orange as tiresome by
reason of intensity. He recommends only
yellow and light tones of green and blue.
Yellow combines well with mahogany
furniture, but spoils the look of gilding. Light
green suits well both with mahogany and
gilding. Light blue suits with mahogany
fairly, and with gilding admirably: it also
combines better than blue with yellow and orange
woods—is therefore good for drawing-rooms.
A grey pattern on a white ground—pattern
and ground being balanced pretty evenly—is,
however, very strongly recommended. As a
general rule, says M. Chevreul, the colour
of the covering of the chairs should be
complementary to the prevailing colour of the
paper-hanging. The window curtains should
be of the colour of the chairs, having
fringes of the colour of the paper-hanging.
The carpet should be chosen by the
same rule, to give distinctness to the effect
of the furniture; green and black being
better dominant colours under mahogany
than red, scarlet, or orange. To mahogany
chairs green covers are good when uniformity
is not desired. In small rooms a harmony
should be sought by carrying throughout an
analogy of colour the contrast should be
of tones and hues of the same colour: it is
only in large rooms that the contrast of
colour can be thoroughly well carried out.

It is not worth while to multiply examples
of this theory. We have desired only to
amuse ourselves and at least one section of our
readers. Whoever means to be a student in
these matters must read M. Chevreul's book,
or look for wiser counsellors. We are, for
our own parts, not sufficiently under the
influence of the colour-sergeant, to care
much whether we sit upon a black chair or a
green one—whether it is a white hat or a
black one that best suits the colour of our hair.

MADAME GRONDETS.

THE institution of the Dames Grondet was—
and I dare say still is—a ladies' school, in a
part of Paris known as the Quartier Plantin,
which lies just within the boundary of the
metropolis, at the extreme end of the Elysian
Fields. The houses in this district lie shrouded
from sight, each by its own surrounding trees
or ivy-covered walls: or they are grouped
into half-built, grassy streets, along which
every footstep echoes. There is a good deal
of waste ground in the Quartier Plantin, to be
let on building leases; but not many people
see the noble sites thus offered to
capitalists, for except residents on the spot,
girls and boys, and the friends of girls and
boys, who come to the many schools there
situated and, of course, the butcher and the
baker few human beings pass the iron gates
by which at all main, outlets this quarter of
Paris is defended.

As for the schools of the district, we of
Madame Groudet's knew of two other
institutions for young ladies near us; and the very
next house to ours we could not see it, but
a corner of its grounds came near the kitchen
of our sanctuary this very next house was a
boy's school. We never saw a boy or heard
a boy, but our imaginations were quite
certain that it was a most extensive boys'
school. There was a legend among us also
concerning a Grondet pupil who in former
times had eloped with a youth belonging
to that school, the lady escaping through a
door that had once existed in our garden wall.
The door had consequently been bricked up.
The spot so immortalised was often pointed
out to me; but always with a vague wave of the
hand that indicated the entire length of the
wall, because the door had been bricked up
so cunningly that no trace was allowed to
remain of its existence. There, however, was
the wall, and there was the story, and there
wasn't the door. No evidence could be more
satisfactory.

There were about a hundred and twenty of
us—pupils of all ages, between six years old
and thirty. Ten or twelve elder girls were
English, and a few others were foreigners,
but the French girls formed the ocean in
which we were only drops. We were divided
into five classes, more according to age than to
attainment, and each class had a room to
itself on the ground floor, and a mistress to
take care of it while there, to lead it to the
lecture-room when masters came, and to
superintend the preparation of its lessons.
The five classes were live distinct school-
worlds. Even the garden was divided into a
part for the elders, and a pare for the juniors.