St. Omer without fear of committing homicide.
Then there are the canalised river crossed by
innumerable little bridges; the sentinelled
and well-guarded porte, like a short dark
tunnel; the drawbridge, the octroi bureau,
and the fortification ditches, which last are
admirably adapted to the comforts of the fat
carp and slippery tench, who flounce and
wriggle among the reeds and water-lilies.
There is the passage by which the road ducks
beneath the railway—and then you are
walking in another world, amongst a people
who have only two ideas to rub together—
namely, gardens and water; unless
whitewashing, colouring, painting, scrubbing,
beer-drinking, and smoking, may, between them,
constitute a third. I do not, however, mean
to assert, either that the natives are
devoid of all sense of religion, tenderness, and
duty, or that money-making is entirely a
forgotten art.

Heigho! it is very hot. Why did we dine
so heartily? Because we were hungry, and the
dinner was good. Idly do we stroll by the
hewn-stone bank of the river Aa, which runs
down the middle of the main street,
constituting the Faubourg du Haut-Pont. We
stare in at the windows, rather rudely
perhaps, to look at the flowers—fuchsias that
would screen a south-west gale, and roses
which might fence out a herd of bullocks—
and the more pointedly we gaze, the more
complacently do the inmates regard us. It
shows in us, they think, such natural
benevolence of disposition to admire a blooming
well-tutored cactus, and to smile complacently
at a promising family of well-educated double
stocks. Surely this plot must belong to a
professional; it is neatness itself, and gayer
than harlequin's coat and nether garments.
If Hudibras were done into the Flemish
tongue, we would quote and stick over the
door as a motto—

         Though Paradise were e'er so fair,
         It was not kept so without care.
         The whole world, without art and dress,
         Would be but one great wilderness.

"If you please, madame, will you accord
us the gratification of walking round your
garden?"

"Willingly, monsieur. Enter this way."
Accordingly I accept the invitation.

"And what is the price of this darling fat
plante grasse, or succulent?"

"Ah! monsieur; my husband does not
sell flowers. He only rears them for his
own enjoyment."

"I beg excuses,"—

"There is no occasion, monsieur. If you
wish for a cutting, you are at liberty to take
one."

Of course I took a strong cutting, inserting
the knife as to divide the subterranean
stem, and bring away a fibre or two of vigorous
root. It was the prettiest plant I had
seen for some time.

But, if you are curious about the name of
the vegetable pet I thus carried off from that
Haut-Pont parterre, I simply reply it was
the plant then in vogue. Flowers are like
fashions and the fair ones who set and wear
them: each reigning beauty, each fresh-blown
mode, is admired as the loveliest and the
most becoming. What more charming than
the simple unaffected style of dress introduced
by the snowdrop, the crocus, the hepatica,
and the primrose? But, as dogs have
their day, so have flowers and beauties.
"Like the waves of the summer, as one dies
away, another as bright and as fleeting
comes on." And we think them all the
brightest for the time being. When the first
generation of spring blooms are turned to
hay and withered leaves, we rapturously
admire and ecstatically adore the glories of
the tulip, the voluptuousness of the rose, the
luxury of the carnation, and the noble
presence of the dahlia. And when they are
standing with one foot in the grave, ready to
be swept to their funeral amidst the compost
heaps of autumn, we console ourselves for the
loss of dear departed flowers, by gazing with
rapture at the expanding petals of
chrysanthemums, dwarf, tall, and middle-sized,
white, yellow, orange, red, brown, blush; in
short, of every colour of the rainbow except
the best,—blue and violet,—for those are the
hues of love and friendship. Exactly so
with milliner's fashions. Did you ever know
a pretty and amiable woman look otherwise
than charming, whether she wore a ruff, a
farthingale, a hoop, or a Mary Stuart cap?
Her hair, whether dusted with a bushel of
powder, frizzed into a cloud, tortured into
corkscrews, braided into long cows'-tails,
plastered stiff with Bandoline, or puffed into
rolls like Bologna sausages,—her hair still
constituted the head-dress of a beauty; and
you admired its arrangement while you
beheld it, however absurd that arrangement
might be. Were you not taken, in your
youth, with coal-scuttle hats, skin-tight
sleeves, low-cut bosoms, and high waists on a
level with the arm-pits? Have you not been
pleased with decorous dresses buttoned tight
round the throat; with gigot-sleeves, which
only require inflation with gas to make your
dearly-beloved Jenny jump over the moon;
with shot-silk skirts, which answer as
admirable substitutes when the street-sweeping
machines are out of order; with multiple
scries of graduated flounces reaching almost
to the ears of the wearer, as if a lady were
a sort of pyrarmido-conical obelisk, whose
pinnacle was to be reached by climbing up
a flight of external steps? I again assert
that women, fashions, and flowers, admit of
no degrees of comparison. They are all
superlative, while they last. The flower
season is a succession of brilliant noons, a
compressed epitome of many bright summers,
a reiteration of culminating points, zeniths,
and climaxes, from which all shadows of