fine, he wished l'arbre."

It was in the vast and beautiful dining-room, however, that Marie excelled herself. When we were all seated, she flew round the narrow passage behind our chairs, and through six long courses kept well in hand the service of from forty to fifty people, pecking sharply at the incompetence of Emile, the garçon, in passing. He bore up so far, but we were told that he was the third of his kind in a fortnight.

We had been so fortunate as to find five or six compatriots in the Petit Paradis before us-an English family, who had, like ourselves, preferred the life of a thoroughly French hotel; and a schoolmaster abroad, who had almost reached the end of a long vacation here, and whose popularity with the whole community was a valuable passport for his countrymen. Otherwise the pensionnaires were French of the French. Chiefly bourgeois families from inland towns, two groups of Parisians among them, being distinctly of a better class. They were almost all eager to make acquaintance, and full of the little courtesies in which their nation excels (though as racially unrefined, in other ways, according to our notions). Then how amusing they were! As good as a play to us all day long. So vivacious over trifles, so naïvely intent on the joys of the table; an old grandpapa, very like a walrus, absolutely lowed with delight when any special dainty appeared, and, calling Marie to him, with trembling hands deliberately picked out all the best portions. One fat family, with porcine faces and short thick necks, sat like a row of dinner-bags, stuffing themselves silently. That the cuisine, even of this out-of-the-way country hotel should be so artistically good as it was, explained, if it did not justify, the importance with which it was regarded. The menu was always ample and varied; but when any particular achievement was in hand, the cook would confide his scheme to appreciative clients, and Mons. Bertrand look in, white-capped and beaming, in the pauses of his arduous managing behind scenes, at each of the three tables d'hôte (for our vast

Imperceptibly the days slipped past. Wakened from dreamless sleep by the sun illumining our white cotton curtains, or by the splash of the incoming tide, or the musical "Prut!' of his tin horn who sold yesterday's Petit Journal on the promenade, we broke fast on the delicious coffee, with bread-andbutter worthy of it, which Marie brought to every room, unless, indeed, you preferred to have it in the garden under the sunlit green branches of the acacias. Then, soon or late, came bathing, with a sequent hunger so vast we learned to take déjeuner as seriously as any Frenchman could. Then long hours of lazing on the shore, watching at ease the humors of the beach. Messieurs les baigneurs, as the summer inhabitants of the seaside resorts are called, rent numberless little boxes ranged on the promenades or at the edge of the sand-dunes. These they furnish with chairs and tables, and live in or in front of them all day long. Mamma and her friends visit each other, and talk and crochet. Papa flies a kite, or plants his croquet set on some inviting stretch of hard sand, and plays with the older children by the hour; or, when the sea has receded almost out of sight, they go a-prawning in the lowtide pools. Meantime the little ones dig or wade, or make sand-pies shaped in dainty little tin moulds sold in the toyshops for the purpose. Always there is noise-talking, laughing, screaming in all keys-from the stout bonne's remonstrance if the little waders wet their clothes, to the angry hurlements of pig-tailed girls and knicker-bockered boys disputing over interminable games of croquet. To us, reclined in some deserted sand-castle, playing with the fossils, which are too numerous and too perfect to excite research, all these energetic clamors serve as lullabies, and as likely as not, borne on the soft wind, they croon us to sleep before the sun's

decreasing height indicates English afternoon tea-time. Then Le Petit leaves the sand garden with its groves of cabbage palms, whose hemlock stems and skate's-egg foliage have been gathered from among the treasures of the tide-mark, and which has been studied and-oh, sweetest flattery!humbly imitated by a solitary little four-year-old girl, whose mother sits sewing near. Her skates'-egg trees are so helplessly wobbly that Le Petit, before leaving his to be effaced by the next tide, impulsively uproots his finest specimens and transplants them to her enclosure. This accomplished, we all repair to the largest of our bedrooms to enjoy our national meal (spread on a newspaper, on a table so rickety that it has to be cautiously approached). Our bread-and-butter and milk are reserved from breakfast, and of tea we have brought more than enough with us.

Having determined not to sacrifice the rest of our holiday to sight-seeing, we seldom made longer expeditions than could be accomplished in the cool hours of the afternoon-sometimes walking or going by train for a few miles along the coast to Bernières, a pretty wooded village guiltless of a casino, and whose few streets and farms were gathered round a great and beautiful church. Here we used to saunter about, sketching little bits of the wealth of carving within and without the church itself, or choosing some more distant view of its long red roof, seen through the trees round about it. Or eise we drew a group of washerwomen, chattering as they scrubbed and beat their linen, by a poplar-fringed pond; or, on the beach, the portly tenor who, dressed as a chef, sang operatically in front of the bathing cabines as he sold guimauve (toffy) from a tray slung in front of him.

Bernières keeps itself inland, somewhat aloof from the sea; but several villas are built on the dunes, and in the garden of one of them a high hedge of maize rustled dryly in the sea-breeze, and three crudely green parrots sunned themselves on highly ornamental perches and made shrill remarks in French.

Clumps of blue sea-thistle make pools of color in the hollows of the sandhills, and the unembanked single line of rails is not only grass-grown but flowergrown, so gaily have the scarlet poppies and yellow rattle and bind-weed claimed it for their own.

Once we went a longer journey in the other direction from Langrune-a sixpenny fare it was, I think-on the airy upper deck of the hot, third-class carriage, to the inland shrine of Notre Dame de la Délivrance, which was all en fête, celebrating the coronation of the Virgin. How hot it was! And how happy all the holiday-makers were! The houses were decked with hundreds of banners, many of them displaying colored prints of the Della Sedia and other famous pictures of the Madonna. Booths for trinkets, pictures, candles, shrines, rosaries, and other so-called articles of religion, drove a roaring trade; the streets were wreathed across with ivy, yew, and rowan-berries, and strings of Japanese lanterns ready for lighting. Within the handsome, quite modern church the famous statue was gorgeously dressed in cloth of gold, and wore a crown richer than usual for the occasion. Tradition and the bas-reliefs above the doorways set forth how the image was long ago unearthed in a neighboring field by a pious sheep, whose persistent scraping attracted the shepherds. It is of wood, almost black from age, with an expression so pagan as to prepare you for the antiquary's theory that it really represents the goddess Latona, and is a relic of the old Roman occupation.

We waited to see the procession leave the church, headed by many clergy and a fine gold-and-silver bishop, smiling benevolently on the little ones who were held up for a blessing from his outstretched hands. Then we strolled back to the station, and waited under the trees on the platform for the leisurely train from Caen.

Letters came in in the last half-hour before dinner, to be read and discussed as we leaned against the railings, or sat on the low stone walls of the plage. If there were none, we amused ourselves in watching the pleasure parties on the

sands breaking up, perhaps driven from their croquet pitches by the in-rushing tide. Sometimes, if time served, Monsieur was fain to secure another bathe, and might be seen flying over the sands, like a risen saint, wrapped in his white Turkish peignoir, urged on by a seasonable fear of being late for the soup. It was then, too, that our home newspaper used to arrive, and be read and lent to our English friends. What we should have done without it, we could not guess, the French papers being destitute of any news of general importance. As six o'clock drew near, the crowd of returning shrimpers, croquet-players, kite-flyers, streamed along the plage, to prepare for the important business of dinner. The wading nun returned to the care of the little old lady whose nurse-companion she seemed to be, the Parisian singer and her nice mother, the bald and amiable art-critic, the gentleman with the poodle, the stout matron from Rouen and her spectacled husband, little Lucie, Lucie's aunt and uncle, Mons, Gaston, who used to write out the bills and menus under the trees in the garden; Mons. Lebrun, who hired out bicycles; a greedy boy called George, and a well-bred boy whose name sounded something like Vitriolthese and all the rest of us crowded into the salle à manger, to do hearty justice to Mons. Bertrand's dinner. The bill of fare one day, I remember, included such good things as vermicelli soup, turbot, cantaloup, veal with mushrooms, cauliflowers, roast goose, and-on a hot August evening-blazing plum-pudding! This last was, of course, complimentary to us English; and the rest looked on with interest to see us batten upon our favorite food. For our national credit, in common gratitude, it was necessary to make an effort, but it was an effort. Not so great, certainly, as that called for on another occasion, when expectant excitement on the part of the French heralded the advent of a dish of great snails dressed au naturel, and Marie, who offered them, was followed by Emile carrying a well-equipped pincushion. Over what followed let us draw a veil.

Twilight was falling when, dinner ended, we wandered out into the sandy

ad

courtyard in twos and threes, or journed for coffee to the garden. One evening somebody suggested cricket, and every Briton was enlisted forthwith. Croquet-mallets were used as bats, till we dared not risk breaking any more, when they had to be rudely fashioned out of odd lengths of wood. A real ball was forthcoming, as also proper flannels. Our six-foot Grand Monsieur made lofty catches, our ladies fielded, our scores rose emulously, while the unfamiliar battle-cries of "Charterhouse!" and "Blairlodge!" rent the air of Calvados, without conveying any meaning to the ears of our Norman conquer

ors.

When it got too dark to play any longer, it was time for long, delightful walks before going to bed.

Sometimes Luc, or St. Aubin, our fashionable neighbors on either hand, were, one or the other, en fête, and we went to see "to assist," as the kindly phrase is, at their fireworks and illuminations. If the fête was grander than usual, we might find music going on, showers of colored paper confetti flung to and fro, booths of marionettes, and huge merry-go-rounds in full swing. The last were immensely popular.

Patient groups were always waiting their turn; and one old lady was, we thought, not only extravagant, but selfish, who calmly kept possession, turn after turn, of the spotted elephant on which she was mounted, shaking her white cap and pressing her grave moustached lips tighter in determined refusal when any one came forward to beg for her place.

The fireworks generally ended with a Retraite des Lanternes, at which messieurs les baigneurs had been prayed earlier in the day to assist. These processions were wonderfully beautiful, as they wound along the dark plage, like a long moving bed of tulips of every color, glowing with light.

As beautiful in a different way was it to watch the fireworks from the deserted beach at Langrune single rockets soaring and melting, starlike, in the still rosy sunset sky; colored lights flaring like terrestrial Auroras,

or, best of all, a glorious bouquet of rockets of all kinds and colors fitly closng the display of the evening.

Every one went early to bed in our village, lulled by the strong air to such sleepiness that we were glad at nine o'clock to clamber our steep little staircase, whose flickering night-light, floating in a tumbler, the ranging winds had often rushed up to extinguish, leaving us to find our way in the dark, and grope for the spluttering sulphur matches on which we depended for light. So to bed-to sleep, as nurses say, without rocking.

The weather during the three weeks of our stay was sometimes showery, and latterly, of an evening, cold. Before we left, the gay garden of the Petit Paradis was getting a little weatherbeaten; the glory of the Plantagenet's bush was passing over, and dry leaves were beginning to fall on the tables of the garden café. The bathing, too, showed signs of becoming less perfect, as after a storm the shore was heaped with seaweed, the farmers' harvest of varech.

These things made it a little easier to go home, and yet we left the scene of our delightful holiday with great reluctance. It has not been possible in so short an account of it to speak of half the pleasures we experienced. I have not even mentioned the great fourteenthcentury church of Langrune, so beautiful in itself, so quiet and holy a place, always open for prayer. The old Triton, who bathed the timid; the naphtha-lit stall where hot guimauve was sold at night; the curious old metal work to be found everywhere, from the finely flowered handles on our chests of drawers, to the dragon-vanes on the farmhouses; the lacemakers; the ladies who could not run fast enough to raise their kites, yet persevered; the procession to bless the sea, headed by the good old curé, whose saintly face was in itself a benediction; the red-tiled room wherein the village barber practised, and the gilt-wire château, adorned with a china clock, in which his canaries lived; the cook who not only knew and could say "Good-morning," but was always willing to cook

fat

any quantity, however small, of prawns; the yellow hollyhock at the washerwoman's door; the curiosity shop; the post woman's little girl, who, though she had but four years, could name the six parts of the world (one, it would appear, is Algérie); the Havre light, shining out intermittently at dusk across the wide bay of the Seine, like a captive meteor struggling to flash away and escape; the picture-book of memory has many more such leaves than there is time to turn over. Suffice it to say that we six found our family holiday in Normandy an entire success.

For the practical reader I add a few notes regarding ways and means. Our journey from and to London (second class, train and cabin) cost less than nine guineas. We had arranged for pension at six francs a day each (except Le Petit, who was only charged four); for this we had everything we required, and our bills did not contain a single "extra." We found on inquiry that so large a party making some little stay might by prearrangement secure pension at ours and many of the other less pretentious hotels in the neighboring villages, for five or five and a half francs a day, tout compris. (These words it is as well to use in contracting.)

We had been warned the water was bad, though clear to the eye; and as it was drawn for all purposes from a well in the midst of an unclean farmyard, we were careful to boil all we used, and learned very soon to like the unlimited supply of cider which took its place at table. This cider tastes like the lightest of lager-beer, and is considered remarkably wholesome. It came in huge tonneaux from the hotel-proprietor's orchards, and was not to be confounded with bottled cider, the sparkling Mousseux, which resembles champagne. Drains and water-supplies, we were told-indeed, all sanitary arrangements -we should find non-existent. So it proved. “Figure to yourself," Marie would say, when she came panting upstairs with a brimming pitcher, and stood a moment to take breath, "each drop one must carry all the way through the garden, and along the street

from the yard. Madame has seen it? But yes, it is frightful, is it not?" Thinking of this, and the seventy people, more or less, whose wants must be supplied, we were as careful as we could be of our daily allowance, accepting with travellers' philosophy the customs of the country.

For those who are familiar with French ways it might be less expensive to take one of the many furnished lodgings in these coast resorts, and hire a femme de ménage capable of housework and able to cook both déjeuners, the little and the great. Dinner could be had for three francs, or three and one-half francs, at an hotel. I am told this is an economical plan, but the amount of small arrangements it involves must make it less of a housekeeper's holiday than is pension life in a hotel. You lose also the varied amusement of society, and (a real loss) the inevitable and invaluable French conversation lessons the table d'hôte provides for you gratis.

It is wise to take as large a purse for sundries as possible, as, even when expeditions are few, many small occasions of expense are sure to arise in the course of the day among a large party. (One charge, and one only, we found exorbitant, and that was our laundry bill.)

But even with a comfortable margin for pocket-money, the cost of such a holiday is, as I have said, little, and the pleasure great. We returned home completely refreshed, all old worries effaced from our minds, leaving them as clear as an unwritten sheet, ready for a fresh beginning of autumn work. was difficult to believe that our invigorated, sun-burnt party had not been making a year-long voyage round the world, but only spending three weeks by the sea in Normandy.

MRS. SCOTT MONCRIEFF.

From The Spectator. MRS. OLIPHANT.

It

Mrs. Oliphant's marvellous industry impeded the public recognition of her

still more marvellous gifts. From early womanhood, before she was quite twenty-one, she determined to make a large income by her pen, and, favored by the early appreciation of Mr. Colburn and Mr. Blackwood, and by a power of steady, persistent work which exceeded even Anthony Trollope's, she succeeded, pouring out a mass of literature which, if decently printed, would fill, we believe, more than a hundred and fifty volumes. Few succeeding numbers of Blackwood's Magazine ever appeared without a contribution from her, she often published two novels a year, and she wrote as many histories another and biographies as would in author have made a reputation. Naturally the public refused to believe that a writer so prolific could be a great genius, while critics regretted that her work, pursued under all manner of conditions and personal trials, was sometimes unequal and sometimes excited the suspicion, not, we think, wholly untrue, that she was beating out the gold of her brain, of which she could not have been unconscious, a little thin. It even happened occasionally, as in the marked case of "Salem Chapel,' that the last half of a book was ordinary, well-written stuff while the first half was flashing with genius and humor. So extraordinary, indeed, were the occasional inequalities in her work

just compare "Lucy Crofton" with "The Ladies Lindores"-that the present writer, one of her devoted admirers, who, like Kinglake, felt that life was happier when one of her novels had appeared, once asked Mr. Blackwood at

Strathtyrum whether he had ever suspected Mrs. Oliphant of employing a ghost. "Yes," was the unexpected reply of that most acute of born critics, "but the suspicion was unfounded. The hills and plains are all in her mind." There were hills and plains, but the hills reached to a wonderful height. Mrs. Oliphant, whom, in spite of the great merit of her blographies, especially the "Life of Irving," and the still greater merit of many occasional essays, we refuse to consider except as a novelist, produced stories of three ab