best attire; I am a little particular, in the interest of my dear Bernadotte, and I have always felt somewhat superstitious in the matter of tidiness. You must not be surprised if you see me give my daughter to the one who shall show me the whitest hands."

Micoutet was almost ready to die with grief; working in the fields had made his skin drier than so much pumice-stone. The baker and the barber, on the contrary, always working in butter or soap, had hands as soft as the satin folds of a duchess's gown.

The poor rustic felt that he was set aside, regarding the forthcoming struggle as calculated for only city gallants. The latter, animated by equally well-founded hopes, spent the week in getting their hands in proper condition, using unguents of the most mollifying character, and they became as fragrant and as white as possible, which stimulated their pride to the highest degree.

Micoutet had not even the courage to wash his hands in the brook, so inferior did he regard himself to these town gentry. His grandfather Simon, who was covertly regarding him through his white eyelashes, comprehended his embarrassment and came to his assistance.

"Micoutet, my boy," said he, handing him a little gray bag covered with dust, "put that in your pocket and keep your appointment at Father Hugh's. When the time comes to show your hands, plunge them into this bag and fill them with the unguent it contains."

"But my skin is as dark and coarse as the bark of an old oak-tree. How can you"

"Follow my advice, my boy. The wash-ball I give you is so efficacious, the most obdurate spots will not resist its action. Its use is of very ancient date, and time has not diminished its virtue."

Micoutet took the soap-bag and resorted to Bernadotte's house. The baker and the barber were not far behind him.

Casterez first showed his fingers; they were whiter than the blossom of the dog-rose. The hairdresser then displayed his, and they looked as fresh as a lily but just in bloom. It now came Micoutet's turn. Firmin and Casterez began to laugh as he drew his huge hands from his pocket and held them forth, when Father Hugh uttered a cry of admiration, for they were filled with bright and beautiful gold

crowns.

"Aha! my boy, that is the real durable whiteness which I love. Bernadotte is yours, for you have courted her without quitting your field, and you know the whiteness the most appreciable in the hands of a son-in-law."

The two abashed and mute town candidates returned to their shops with their ears hanging lower than those of a hound after losing a hare. Bernadotte and Micoutet good-naturedly invited them to their wedding, and they had wit enough to go, as townsmen scarcely ever neglect to enjoy what is good in the dwelling of a disdained peasant. The happy couple, happy as everybody is with as much money as good temper, laboured throughout their lives to swell the contents of the soap-bag, the gift of their venerable grandfather.

IL

CLAIRETTE; OR, THE HUSBAND-HUNTER.

She

Clairette lost her father and her mother when she was but thirteen years of age. was a good-natured girl, but had rather a flighty head, and always looked at things upon the surface, and took very little pains to get at the sense which lay hidden beneath them. She accordingly allowed her uncle and guardian to neglect her property, paying no attention to it, and liked better to frequent fairs, markets, the festivals of patron saints, and to enjoy Sunday amusements, rather than to hoe in her fields, spade up her garden, and lead her sheep to the pasturage.

Clairette was by no means indolent or inactive; she would pass an hour every morning dressing herself, and two more during the day smoothing her ribbons, doing up her scarfs, and putting away her skirts. After this came a walk here and a promenade there, so that the poor child had not a moment to spare. To make amends she had several nice companions

how many one has at her age! The child seems to make stores of friends, and all the more because at every step it takes in the world it is sure to lose one. A dozen young girls had attended school and made their first communion with Clairette. After this important act, which brings us out of our infancy and which assigns to us our place in the great workshop here below, each was allotted her task in the family. Marghelide did sewing during the day and spun in the evening; Biebe looked after the house, and carried out meals to the field hands; Lixandrine took the sheep and the cows to pasture.

Clairette alone, as idle as a little savageshe called this liberty--was proud of her independence, and pitied her poor companions who gave themselves so much trouble in the world. "Of what use is it? Is Biebe's Sunday dress any the better for plodding along muddy paths

strewn with briers? Has Lixandrine a finer complexion for getting tanned in a scorching summer sun tending her cows?"

The time came, however, when in spite of her pride in her half-vagabond life, Clairette was less ambitious of independence, and felt disposed to come under the dominion of a husband. This very natural desire, but still a vague one at eighteen, besides being subject to circumstances, became imperious, like the satisfaction of a point of honour, when Clairette returned from the wedding of Marghelide with the tailor Latané.

Marghelide was the younger. By what inexplicable grace of St. Joseph, the patron of spouses, should she take the lead of her associates? She was assuredly less pretty than Clairette, and likewise less amiable-who would dispute that? What charm had given her the preference in the eyes of the brisk young Latané?

Ah! here it is. Marghelide wore a splendid red petticoat as brilliant as a poppy, and which scared away the cattle, but which produced a quite contrary effect on all the young men; the colour of this lucky petticoat relieved so sharply on the green of the meadows and the gray of the brambles as to be very easily seen half a league off. Latané, completely be wildered, must have run for the petticoat the same as a lot of frogs after the baited hook on the end of a fish-line.

Woman is naturally disposed to regard her toilet as a sort of talisman, and not alone the city dame, but the simplest young girl of the fields. It suffices to wear a petticoat to possess an instinct for colours and calicoes. Clairette had it in the highest degree; she was sure that she had discovered Marghelide's secret; she ran off to sell six of her sheep, and bought the deepest scarlet petticoat she could find in the market.

From that day forth Clairette never went to the spring, to church, to a ball, or to a fair without wearing the attractive garment in which the lucky Marghelide had captured the tailor Latané.

In vain, however, did she glide through the crowd and thus display herself. The women found her tawdry, the young girls looked envious, while the young men politely invited her to dance; but no mother ever dreamed of selecting her as a wife for her son, and no son ever uttered a word about taking her for a housekeeper.

A year of fruitless efforts had passed, and not a whisper of a proposal of marriage. What bad luck! Soon her friend Biebe followed the

same delightful road as Marghelide, and espoused the farmer Menichot.

Clairette became despondent. She had lost fifteen months in displaying her red petticoat, and she could not imagine the cause of her failure. Was Biebe, then, the more charming? Nobody would dare maintain that falsehood. It was sufficient to see them alongside of each other at a dance. Clairette always had thirty partners more than her rival. Was she more entertaining? Biebe could not put together two consecutive ideas, and when her beaux spoke to her, she answered only with downcast eyes.

"I have it," said Clairette, meditating, and eager to know the cause of her disgrace. "Biebe wears a distaff at her side constantly, even with the water-jar on her head, and when carrying the basket with the workmen's meal."

The distaff, it must be admitted, had about it a certain matrimonial virtue which enticed young men anxious to marry, the same as a mirror attracts looks. Clairette was determined to have one of these magical utensils. If a plain willow distaff proved so highly advantageous to the housekeeper Biebe, what would not be the effect of a handsome distaff of hazel, exquisitely carved by the best workman of the village, decked with the finest white wool instead of coarse flax, and entwined with red ribbons instead of pack-thread?

The young girl fits herself out; she buys the choicest spinning apparatus in the country, covers it with wool as white as snow, adorns it with ribbons artistically arranged in bows, and never shows herself outside her door, in the street, or in the village, without this elegant implement of all good and industrious maidens.

One point only had been forgotten, and that was to twirl the spindle. The motionless distaff at her belt always displayed the same flock of wool.

Now what happened? Clairette's elegant instrument proved to be less efficacious than the rude willow stick of the industrious Biebe. The year passed away. Clairette, at every festivity found dancers eager enough to clasp her waist and to press her hand, but never a beau disposed to talk of marriage. She was now twenty, and she saw her cousin Françoise, her friend Lixandrine

"Lixandrine, the most ungainly creature in the whole village, a girl that limps," reported those clairvoyant people who are called backbiters. "Yes, indeed, Lixandrine, that redheaded black face with wry hips! What witch did she go to to get a charm for that

miserable Jean Pierron? What secret did she turn up in her grandmother's work-bag?" Clairette patiently sought a solution of these difficulties. She thought, finally, that she had found one in the presence of a little white lambkin which constantly followed the shepherdess's footsteps.

After making this important discovery it may be imagined whether Clairette was prompt in procuring a lamb as closely resembling as possible that of the dark-complexioned Lixandrine! From that day forth she was never seen without this pretty little creature bleating and skipping around her, and always coming to her to eat bread out of her hand.

Did a suitor follow in the footsteps of the lamb? No more than he came at the signal of the red petticoat, or at that of the crossribboned distaff. Day followed day, month followed month-poor Clairette looked in vain.

To regrets and mortification succeeded despair. Old Aunt Migueline, wise in the ways of the world, overheard her moans and administered consolation. Where is the young girl who has not some good old fairy near at hand to give her counsel, if she will only take pains enough to listen to it?

"You are weeping, Clairette," said Aunt Migueline, addressing her.

"I am crying over my twenty-one years gone without, without-stopping," she responded.

"Without fetching you a husband, you mean to say."

"One need not be a witch to guess that, Migueline."

"Your red petticoat and gay distaff are worn out in a useless service; your lambkin bleating and frisking around you has proved equally useless."

"Why do you throw those things up to me, Migueline?"

"I say what I think, Clairette. Do you suppose that my eyes, half-closed by age, do not see clearly into the toils and snares set by you and those like you on the path to matrimony! Every young girl is an imitating bird, of the parrot or magpie order, who, since the world began, is ever exclaiming, Husband! husband! and it is not necessary to teach her anything in this direction, my dear niece Clairette."

"'Tis true, Migueline. But I thought I might be as fortunate as my friends, and in imitating their mode of display, make"

"And you are obliged to confess that you have had all your trouble for nothing. Poor

children, always relying upon colour instead of form, and never finding out the true state of things! Yes, the habit of your companions of appearing in public associated with certain suitable and useful objects, has contributed not a little towards getting them husbands. But do you know the reason? It is because the red petticoat was woven and made up by the persevering young girl who wore it; such an example of her skill and activity in using her needle furnishing admirable proof of her knowing what to do in the situation in which she is placed. The distaff likewise proved as profitable to Biebe, because she was a fearless spinner, and did not rest satisfied, as you did, with carrying the implement around with her motionless at her belt; she kept the spindle below it and her fingers always busy, so that the flock of wool or flax had to be renewed ten times a day. If the lamb did not prove unserviceable to Lixandrine, it was because it was the leader of a fine drove of fifty which that careful little shepherdess led out daily to pasture, early in the morning in summer, and during the afternoon in winter, avoiding wet grass and fields, always getting back before it rained, and ever keeping clear of changes in the weather, of so much harm to those delicate little creatures. Your three companions worked so faithfully in their respective callings that they are known far and wide for their intelligence and activity-the best possible dowry a young girl can have, and the most reliable charm for a husband. Put aside the red petticoat which you bought and did not spin, the distaff of no avail to you, and the equally useless lamb. You have fields and meadows that are lying fallow; resume your rake and hoe, stir up the ground, and pull up the weeds; be as industrious as your companions, and you will not have to wait long for a husband."

Clairette listened to Aunt Migueline's discourse with all the attention which advice deserves when one is disposed to follow it because it seems good. No longer quitting her little plot of ground, she dug, hoed, and made hay so successfully that, at the end of the year, the son of rich old Thomas came and put to her the following question:

"Clairette, will you be my wife?"

"Why should I refuse, Monsieur Thomas, if such is your wish?" responded Clairette, with downcast eyes, and a modest feint which the least bashful of country girls can so well assume.

THE VAGABONDS.

A WAYSIDE STORY.

[John Townsend Trowbridge, born in Ogden, Monroe, New York, 1827. He is the author of numerous tales and sketches, the best known of which areCudj's Cave; The Old Battleground; The Three Scouts; Burr Cliff: Hearts and Faces; and Lucy Arlyn. Many of his works were first published under the signature of Paul Creyton. His poems have had a much wider popularity than his prose works; and The Vagabonds, by its dramatic force and pathos, at once commanded the sympathy of all readers of English. An American critic says of his poetical genius: "He has a genuine love of nature, and a knowledge of its forms exceeding that of many greater poets."]

We are two travellers-Roger and I:

Roger's my dog. Come here, you scamp! Jump for the gentlemen-mind your eye! Over the table, look out for the lampThe rogue is growing a little old:

No, sir-see him wag his tail and grin!
By George, it makes my old eyes water!
That is, there's something in this gin

That chokes a fellow-but no matter.

We'll have some music-if you're willing;
And Roger-h'm, what a plague a cough is, sir-
Shall march a little. Start, you villain :
Stand straight, 'bout face, salute your officer.
Put up that paw-dress-take your rifle
(Some dogs have arms, you see), now, hold your
Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle
To aid a poor old patriotic soldier!

March, halt-now, show how the rebel shakes
When he stands up to hear his sentence:
Now tell how many drams it takes

To honour a jolly new acquaintance. Five yelps! - that's five, he's mighty knowing. The night's before us-f -fill the glasses; Quick, sir; I'm ill, my brain is going

Some brandy?-thank you-there, it passes!

We've learned what comfort is, I tell you-
A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin,
A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow,

The paw he holds up there's been frozen), Plenty of catgut for my fiddle

This out-door business is bad for strings

But I've gone through such wretched treatment,

Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread,

And scarce remembering what meat meant, That my poor stomach's past reform; And there are times when, mad with thinking, I'd sell out heaven for something warm To prop a horrible inward sinking.

Is there a way to forget to think?

At your age, sir, home, fortune, friends

And Roger and I set up for kings.

No, thank ye, sir-I never drink,

Roger and I are exceedingly moral—

Aren't we, Roger? See him wink!

Well, something hot, then, we won't quarrel. He's thirsty, too, see him nod his head!

What a pity, sir, that dogs can't talk! He understands every word that's said

And he knows good milk from water and chalk.

The truth is, sir, now I reflect,

I have been so sadly given to grog, I wonder I've not lost the respect

(Here's to you, sir) even of my dog. But he sticks by, through thick and thin; And this old coat with its empty pockets, And rags that smell of tobacco and gin, He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets.

There isn't another creature living

Would do it, and prove through every disaster So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving

To such a miserable, thankless master.

The same old story: you know how it ends. If you could have seen these classic featuresYou needn't laugh, sir, they were not then Such a burning libel on God's creaturesI was one of your handsome men.

If you had seen her, so fair and young,

Whose head was happy on this breast; If you could have heard the songs I sung When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed

That ever I, sir, should be straying

From door to door with fiddle and dog, Ragged and penniless, and playing

To you to-night for a glass of grog.

She's married since-a parson's wife:

'Twas better for her that we should part, Better the soberest prosiest life

Than a blasted home and a broken heart. Have I seen her?-once: I was weak and spent; On the dusty road a carriage stopped; But little she dreamed, as on she went,

Who kiss'd the coin that her fingers dropped.