marry too, though with considerably greater
difficulty, and after longer consideration. The
indispensable conditions are the same: the
lady must have as much as the gentleman,
and the gentleman must be on a property-par
with the lady. In short, it is the shops,
money-bags, breweries, farms, mortgages, coke-
barges, turf- bogs, pastures, professions, and
inheritances in prospect, which get married,
quite as much as the persons who belong to
them.

We don't travel much—at least, those of
us who have not been in the army. We
have heard of Paris and Lyons as immense
cities with broad rivers rushing past them, a
long way off in the central parts of the
empire. No doubt, they must be four or five
times as big as our town is. Reports of an
English city called Douvres, beyond the sea,
on the other side of The Sleeve, have also
reached us; one douanier went so far as to
say that he had seen it from the top of the
Blanez cliffs. Marseilles and Toulon we regard
as next door to the Crimée, and a considerable
step in the direction of the Grandes
Indes.

"And how is that eaten? " asked a
wondering maid-of-all-work, when I brought home
a dish of periwinkles. And yet, by mounting
the hills at the back of our town, you catch
the blue horizon of the English Channel, and
on calm frosty days you can hear the roar of
the waves.

"Bring in the oysters I told you to open,"
said the head of a household, growing
impatient.

"Les voilà," replied the cook, proudly. "It
took me a long time to clean them, but I have
done it at last, and have thrown all the nasty
insides into the street." The same kitchen-
familiar spirit, having seen asparagus eaten
by commencing with a bite at the green end,
pursued the same plan with an artichoke that
was offered to her, and remarked, when her
mastication was concluded, that she did not
like that vegetable much!

"Why are you putting the three-minute
sand-glass into the saucepan with the eggs you
are boiling? You'll crack the glass if you
serve it so. Did you never see an hour-glass
or a three-minute-glass before?"

"Never, never," she replied; "but Madame
told me to boil the eggs with that."

Still, we enjoy many of the results of
civilisation which are common to France in
general. We have a permanent Maire, who
retains office from year to year, sparing us
the nuisance of annual turns-out and ward
elections—not a village Maire like those of
whom so many funny stories are told; not
like him who gravely registered the death of
a month-old baby, as a célibataire and sans
profession; nor like him who, when one
rustic broke a rake across another rustic's
back, sentenced the owner of the back to pay
the value of the rake it had broken; but an
old soldier, a décoré, of gentlemanly address,
conservative opinions, and thoughtful mien,
who paces our Grand Square to and fro, as if
the weight of empire rested on his shoulders.

In the street, our houses play at even-and-
odd, ranging themselves on either side, like
schoolboys at a game of French and English,
or prisoners'-base. I belong to the even party.
We have our innings all at once, when we are
all at home in bed. I don't know how we
manage about odd or even houses which have
no opposite partners to correspond to them
in the edificial country-dance. Perhaps they
have a depôt at the back of the Mairie, where
unmatched houses are kept in lirnbo till called
for.

A few of our other specialities are our
springs of sweet water, our bleaching
establishments, our canal and its dependencies,
our quarries, mines, woods, hills, marshes,
corn-lands, pastures, flax-fields, and fisheries,
hard by. In fact, we are somebody, with
something to boast of. But, the grand
speciality, on which I propose further to dilate,
is—what there is not room for to-day.

THE DEAD SECRET.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH. TIMON OF LONDON.

TIMON of Athens retreated from an ungrateful
world to a cavern by the sea-shore
—Timon of London took refuge from his
species in a detached house at Bayswater.
Timon of Athens vented his misanthropy in
magnificent poetry—Timon of London
expressed his sentiments in shabby prose.
Timon of Athens had the honour of being
called " My Lord "—Timon of London was
only addressed as " Mr. Treverton." The
one point of resemblance which it is possible
to set against these points of contrast
between the two Tirnons consisted in this:
that their misanthropy was, at least, genuine.
Both were incorrigible haters of mankind.

From his childhood, Andrew Treverton's
character had presented those strong
distinguishing marks of good and bad, jostling and
contradicting each other, which the language
of the world carelessly expresses and
contemptuously sums up in the one word—
eccentric. There is probably no better proof
of the accuracy of that definition of man
which describes him as an imitative animal,
than is to be found in the fact, that the verdict
of humanity is always against any
individual member of the species who presumes
to differ from the rest. A man is one of a
flock, and his wool must be of the general
colour. He must drink when the rest drink,
and graze where the rest graze. When the
others are frightened by a dog, and scamper,
starting with the right leg, he must be
frightened by a dog, and scamper, starting
with the right leg also. If he is not
frightened, or even if, being frightened, he
scampers and starts out of step with the rest,
it is a proof at once that there is something
not right about him. Let a man walk at