with feelings like the rest of humanity: why,
then, should those feelings b so carelessly
outraged as they often are, and she made to
feel that she is a being quite apart from the
rest of the world—a kind of Pariah? Why
should she be so often spoken of
contemptuously us "only a Governess?"

A MAY DAY IN THE PYRENEES.

Our English May often recalls to me the
days of a happy May spent in a valley of the
Pyrenees; and thither I should like, for a
short time, to transport my readers.

The snowy mountains are tossed about on
all sides, yet they do not chill us. They
are the white-robed guardians of the vale;
but their awful presence is sufficiently
removed from us; gentle slopes and green
hills lead us on so gradually that we lose all
fear, and looking up at them, say only, "How
beautiful!"

And then how exquisite are the meadows,
enamelled with spring tlowers, daffodils,
narcissus, and the brilliant blue gentianella!
The foaming rills leap down the hill-side
with impetuous speed, and with a happy
babble of inarticulate sound which seems on
the very eve of becoming articulate speech.
I watch their last fall; some join the broad
stream that flows through the valley with an
eager bound, others flow in gently, almost
timidly, as if half-doubting what the new
life may bring.

And then—for my picture is panoramic—
I turn from the stream and look away over
the fields to a house by the roadside. It is a
half cottage, half farm-house, with no trees
near it, and with the desolate, uncared-for
look that such houses have in the south of
France, and more especially in the valleys of
the Pyrenees. In front of it a low stone wall
encloses a courtyard, in which are pigs, geese,
turkeys, fowls, and a donkey. The donkey
stands with his neck stretched over the wall
and his heavy head hanging down; the pigs
squeak and squabble and rustle in the straw;
and—although I cannot see them—I know
by that simultaneous scream and flutter that
the geese have taken an insane rush from one
side of their domain to the other. One goose
stretches out its neck, and, without uttering
any sound, starts on an errand, the object of
which no one can divine; and then all the
foolish fraternity stretch their necks and run,
and fly, and cackle, and scream after it. The
more dignified and ill-natured turkeys seem
inclined, by the harsh tone of their
remonstrance, to resent so uncalled-for and aimless
a proceeding; but eventually nothing comes
of it, and in a few minutes the hens, who
seem to look upon the laying of eggs as the
one object of existence, resume their noisy
self-gratulations at having achieved this
object. There are some rough blocks of
wood by the stone wall which form a
convenient seat for five or six peasant women,
who are knitting, spinning, talking, and
laughing in the sun.

They all have the Béarnaise head-dress—
a bright-coloured handkerchief bound closely
round the hair—and each, according to her
own device, has some additional protection
from the sunshine which streams down, flooding
the bright meadows, and quivering round
the exquisite green of the willows and poplars
that skirt the stream.

One has a child's red petticoat thrown over
her head. With the instinct of a Béarnaise,
she caught up the nearest thing at hand.
Another has a woollen handkerchief knotted
loosely under her chin, and some have the
blue, home-spun, linen apron, folded in four,
and looking like a quaint device for a cap.
There are two or three standing to gossip
with the others, who, although it is not yet
nine o'clock, have already done their day's
washing. For five hours past you might
have heard the splash in the shallow stream,
and the dull thud thud of the heavy home-
spun linen, which they wash by striking it
repeatedly on a short plank, one end of which
is raised and supported by a leg, and the
other rests in the water. They have dried
the clothes on a neighbouring hedge, or bank,
sitting crouched near it, and knitting the
while; and now, having folded the cumbrous
articles and piled them one above another on
their heads, they are on the way home.

All have discarded their most important
item of winter clothing, namely stockings,
and are barefooted, though some have huge
wooden sabots lying by their side. The
Béarnaise peasants seem to make a religious
duty of carrying these ungainly canoes
wherever they go, and although they do not
wear them you may see them sticking out of
baskets, among flowers, and vegetables, and
bread, and meat, and poultry.

Some boys are playing at leap-frog near
the women; leap-frog, of course, in French
fashion. One boy stoops, resting head and
hands against the wall, a second boy takes a
run, jumps on the back of the first, and from
thence springs to his neck; a third boy follows
the second, and a fourth the third, and so on,
until the first boy sinks beneath his burden,
and there is a sprawling mass of arms and
legs in the dusty path.

There are little barefooted girls skipping
among the sharp flints of the road with as
much comfort as on a boarded floor; and by
the side of a small dark-haired and dark-eyed
girl, who talks less than any of her
companions, there is one of the large, round,
shallow wicker baskets, in which a Béarnaise
will carry on her head to market enough
vegetables, apples, méture or maize bread,
and poultry to fill a cart. This basket,
however, is shaded by the favourite huge scarlet
cotton umbrella; and when the girl lifts it
slily from time to time, she is greeted by a
shout from a baby beneath it of about fourteen
months old.