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ran away, it was always in the direction of a hole or a furze bush or a hedge, or something where she was out of sight, and where by stopping very suddenly she misled the enemy into thinking she had gone ever so much further on. But our poor little bunnykin had not grown up to this yet. When it tried to hide it sat down very close, it is true, but on the middle of the path and most pathetically unconcealed. When it ran away it was only down the same path a little way and then it came to a full stop without even a blade of grass to screen it. How it escaped the cats I cannot imagine, but it did, for I saw it twice and the second time I caught it. I took it up to the house and put it into the great aviary in the shrubbery; for when it saw me coming it hid itself-the pretty wee fool-by crouching down as flat as possible on the close-shorn turf, and when I walked up to it it made a spasmodic little hedgehog sort of dash down the path and squatted again as if it were out of sight. So I picked it up for its own good, knowing that it was not wise enough yet to look after itself, and made a prisoner of it till its babyhood was past, and then we let it go in a spinney; and as soon as it was let go it ran off as if it was never going to stop, and I am not sure that I ever saw it again.

But there was one rabbit that we all called "Bunnykin," which used to come on to the lawn almost up to the drawing-room door and eat the campanulas; and now and again one or other of us would catch a glimpse of a rabbit near the aviary where, at intervals, the gardener's boy had been told to shoot all reiuse garden-stuff, a barrowful at a time, aged cabbages with turnip and carrot tops (here and there an unconsidered rootlet among the foliage-oh, joy for Bunnykin!), and overgrown parsley and lettuces that had run to seed, a veritable Ali Baba's heap of treasures; and we always said this rabbit was "Bunnykin."

But by and by came a day when we found on the garden path fragments of rabbit fur and two little hind-paws, and Prin, our great Persian cat, came home

with two little fore-paws, and carried its trophies into the kitchen to the delirious enchantment of two pug puppies which were there in a box. But we all felt that these were the sad relicts of "Bunnykin" betrayed to death by overconfidence, so we chided Prin becomingly, and mourned for "Bunnykin.” And the pug puppies kept faithful to those fore-paws till they were so grown up that they scorned their box; but in case they should ever "unremember" the rabbit as Tots said, we christened them Bunkins and Bunny wee. And Tots, sitting in one of her silly little sentimental moods, cuddling the pups on her lap and talking to them, said queerly, "We tried to be good to Bunnykin when he was a baby, and so when he had gone dead he said to Prin, 'You may take my 'ickle paws to the pups to play with. I don't want them any

more.'"

What a very helpless little mite a young rabbit really is whose mother is dead, unable to say a word in its own defence and with nothing that may protect it but its baby-beauty. As it goes out foraging for itself, a responsibility absurdly disproportioned to its size, its every step must be a terror to it. With what deference it treats the blackbird pecking at a fallen apple with such furious energy. "I hope he won't peck me like that," says the bunny. And here is a robin right in front of it, perking up its tail at the tiny grey passenger and chirruping defiance, and the bunny gives the impudent red-coat a wide berth, but lo! a squirrel in the way, making fearsome noises with nuts. And the bunny lays low, and 'lows he'll wait till Brer Squirrel done eating nuts. And there at the corner is a thrush hammering snails on a stone, as awe-inspiring a sound to the bunny as Grumbleking grinding bones to make his bread to Jack. Another bird is tapping hollowly at a tree, and a creature down in a hole is rasping away at something. Very suspicious noises these, and threatening. And poor bunny's ears are twitching all the time with fright, and it hardly dares to nibble a mouthful lest "something" should overtake it.

When you pick it up, it lies on your hand as still as a dead thing, with ears laid along its back, and paws tucked in, and only its fast-panting sides—“drawing its breath as short as a new-ta'en sparrow" to tell you that your pretty captive is in an agony of fear. So treat it tenderly. A drain-pipe half filled with hay makes a sumptuous "burrow" for it, and with a little heap of bran and parsley and lettuce leaves at the open end the bunny finds life more comfortable than when buccaneering in the orchard. For the creatures in the aviary are all friends, and it is not long before Bunnykins finds it out, and, though never familiar with the pigeons and the golden pheasants and longhaired cavies, he is no longer afraid for his life, and all his neighbors 'low that Brer Bunny is very 'specktable, and with no misbehavishness.

And, who knows, perhaps, he tells his companions about life "out of doors," its incidents and excitements, and be sure that if he did, he did not forget to tell them about the dreadful ailment so incidental to rabbits, which I suppose they call "bang." "It is a very common ailment,” he would say. “and dreadfully sudden." What causes it we do not know, but all at once you hear bang, and one of us stops running. Sometimes he lies quite still, sometimes he tumbles head over heels, sometimes he seems to be unable to run and only creeps. And what happens afterwards we cannot tell. Enough that he never comes home again. And would add the bunny, "there is a very bad form of bang from which you seldom recover. We call it bang-bang."

PHIL ROBINSON.

From Les Annáles. THE FELIBRE.

The "félibre" is a modern type, quite unknown to our ancestors. The first félibre to achieve renown was Joseph Rouncaville, who amused himself by collecting some of the legends of Pro

son

vence and turning them into dialect verse for the diversion of his mother. The good lady liked them; the found the exercise entertaining, and by and by, his bits of rhyme began to find favor with the knowing folk of Avignon. A little group of artists then com. bined to work the same vein; which they did systematically and more or less successfully, until Mistral came to render the association famous by his masterpiece "Mirèio." The society called itself the Félibrige, and was content, for a time, with its local fame. It was mentioned with sympathy and admired at a distance, and its members dwelt in their proper realm like feudal lords respected and all-powerful. But one day the fatal ambition seized them of issuing from their own domain and making conquest, first of Paris and, after Paris, of all France. The literary triumphs of certain southerners, especially of Alphonse Daudet, had intoxicated them. They rushed to the siege of the capital, and their tumultuous phalanx received fresh reinforcements every day. They established themselves in the Latin quarter, and chose for their place of meeting the Café Voltaire, which resounded thenceforth with the uproar of their eloquence. They were noisy and demonstrative, unceremonious and obstinate; and they wore their beards long. They nudged one another; they got into the newspapers; they gorged themselves with mutual admiration. They came, erelong, to constitute a formidable free-masonry against which one had to defend oneself. They were amusing and men laughed at first, at their awesome accents, the intrepidity of their pride, the superb confidence in their own genius, which they cherished, one and all. They let the storm pass, and held on their way. They concocted among themselves a wonderful system of advertising. The merest bagatelle which affected them, assumed, at once, the importance of an affair of state. Once a month, they assembled in solemn conclave, and an official report of their proceedings was published the next day.

But public opinion is capricious, and.

ran away, it was always in the direction of a hole or a furze bush or a hedge, or something where she was out of sight, and where by stopping very suddenly she misled the enemy into thinking she had gone ever so much further on. But our poor little bunnykin had not grown up to this yet. When it tried to hide it sat down very close, it is true, but on the middle of the path and most pathetically unconcealed. When it ran away it was only down the same path a little way and then it came to a full stop without even a blade of grass to screen it. How it escaped the cats I cannot imagine, but it did, for I saw it twice and the second time I caught it. I took it up to the house and put it into the great aviary in the shrubbery; for when it saw me coming it hid itself-the pretty wee fool-by crouching down as flat as possible on the close-shorn turf, and when I walked up to it it made a spasmodic little hedgehog sort of dash down the path and squatted again as if it were out of sight. So I picked it up for its own good, knowing that it was not wise enough yet to look after itself, and made a prisoner of it till its babyhood was past, and then we let it go in a spinney; and as soon as it was let go it ran off as if it was never going to stop, and I am not sure that I. ever saw it again.

But there was one rabbit that we all called "Bunnykin," which used to come on to the lawn almost up to the drawing-room door and eat the campanulas; and now and again one or other of us would catch a glimpse of a rabbit near the aviary where, at intervals, the gardener's boy had been told to shoot all retuse garden-stuff, a barrowful at a time, aged cabbages with turnip and carrot tops (here and there an unconsidered rootlet among the foliage-oh, joy for Bunnykin!), and overgrown parsley and lettuces that had run to seed, a veritable Ali Baba's heap of treasures; and we always said this rabbit was "Bunnykin."

But by and by came a day when we found on the garden path fragments of rabbit fur and two little hind-paws, and Prin, our great Persian cat, came home

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with two little fore-paws, and carried its trophies into the kitchen to the delirious enchantment of two pug puppies which were there in a box. But we all felt that these were the sad relicts of "Bunnykin" betrayed to death by overconfidence, so we chided Prin becomingly, and mourned for "Bunnykin." And the pug puppies kept faithful to those fore-paws till they were so grown up that they scorned their box; but in case they should ever "unremember" the rabbit as Tots said, we christened them Bunkins and Bunny wee. And Tots, sitting in one of her silly little sentimental moods, cuddling the pups on her lap and talking to them, said queerly, "We tried to be good to Bunnykin when he was a baby, and so when he had gone dead he said to Prin, 'You may take my 'ickle paws to the pups to play with. I don't want them any

more.'"

What a very helpless little mite a young rabbit really is whose mother is dead, unable to say a word in its own defence and with nothing that may protect it but its baby-beauty. As it goes out foraging for itself, a responsibility absurdly disproportioned to its size, its every step must be a terror to it. With what deference it treats the blackbird pecking at a fallen apple with such furious energy. "I hope he won't peck me like that," says the bunny. And here is a robin right in front of it, perking up its tail at the tiny grey passenger and chirruping defiance, and the bunny gives the impudent red-coat a wide berth, but lo! a squirrel in the way, making fearsome noises with nuts. And the bunny lays low, and 'lows he'll wait till Brer Squirrel done eating nuts. And there at the corner is a thrush hammering snails on a stone, as awe-inspiring a sound to the bunny as Grumbleking grinding bones to make his bread to Jack. Another bird is tapping hollowly at a tree, and a creature down in a hole is rasping away at something. Very suspicious noises these, and threatening. And poor bunny's ears are twitching all the time with fright. and it hardly dares to nibble a mouthful lest "something" should overtake it.

When you pick it up, it lies on your hand as still as a dead thing, with ears laid along its back, and paws tucked in, and only its fast-panting sides-"drawing its breath as short as a new-ta'en sparrow" to tell you that your pretty captive is in an agony of fear. So treat it tenderly. A drain-pipe half filled with hay makes a sumptuous "burrow" for it, and with a little heap of bran and parsley and lettuce leaves at the open end the bunny finds life more comfortable than when buccaneering in the orchard. For the creatures in the aviary are all friends, and it is not long before Bunnykins finds it out, and, though never familiar with the pigeons and the golden pheasants and longhaired cavies, he is no longer afraid for his life, and all his neighbors 'low that Brer Bunny is very 'specktable, and with no misbehavishness.

And, who knows, perhaps, he tells his companions about life "out of doors," its incidents and excitements, and be sure that if he did, he did not forget to tell them about the dreadful ailment so incidental to rabbits, which I suppose they call "bang." "It is a very common ailment," he would say. "and dreadfully sudden." What causes it we do not know, but all at once you hear bang, and one of us stops running. Sometimes he lies quite still, sometimes he tumbles head over heels, sometimes he seems to be unable to run and only creeps. And what happens afterwards we cannot tell. Enough that he never comes home again. And would add the bunny, "there is a very bad form of bang from which you seldom recover. We call it bang-bang."

PHIL ROBINSON.

From Les Annáles. THE FELIBRE.

The "félibre" is a modern type, quite unknown to our ancestors. The first félibre to achieve renown was Joseph Rouncaville, who amused himself by collecting some of the legends of Pro

or

vence and turning them into dialect verse for the diversion of his mother. The good lady liked them; the son found the exercise entertaining, and by and by, his bits of rhyme began to find favor with the knowing folk of Avignon. A little group of artists then combined to work the same vein; which they did systematically and more less successfully, until Mistral came to render the association famous by his masterpiece "Mirèio." The society called itself the Félibrige, and was content, for a time, with its local fame. It was mentioned with sympathy and admired at a distance, and its members dwelt in their proper realm like feudal lords respected and all-powerful. But one day the fatal ambition seized them of issuing from their own domain and making conquest, first of Paris and, after Paris, of all France. The literary triumphs of certain southerners,-especially of Alphonse Daudet, had intoxicated them. They rushed to the siege of the capital, and their tumultuous phalanx received fresh reinforcements every day. They established themselves in the Latin quarter, and chose for their place of meeting the Café Voltaire, which resounded thenceforth with the uproar of their eloquence. They were noisy and demonstrative, unceremonious and obstinate; and they wore their beards long. They nudged one another; they got into the newspapers; they gorged themselves with mutual admiration. They came, erelong, to constitute a formidable free-masonry against which one had to defend oneself. They were amusing and men laughed at first, at their awesome accents, the intrepidity of their pride, the superb confidence in their own genius, which they cherished, one and all. They let the storm pass, and held on their way. They concocted among themselves a wonderful system of advertising. The merest bagatelle which affected them, assumed, at once, the importance of an affair of state. Once a month, they assembled in solemn conclave, and an official report of their proceedings was published the next day.

But public opinion is capricious, and.

The con

of as many orations; the recitation of
fifty sonnets; the illumination of the
pope's castle at Avignon by electric
light, and a solemn celebration of the
glories of Mistral. What an oppor-
tunity for the "Félibrige!"
spirators of the Café Voltaire exulted,
and their eyes gleamed with a sinister
light. They fancied that the rest of us
would retire from the contest and hold
our peace; but not a bit of it! They
have not yet done with the grandchil-
dren of King Réné!

by and by, the world began to tire of the félibres. They then perceived the necessity of keeping up the excitement by organizing an annual fête, which might serve as a pretext for discourses and "farandoles." They cast their eyes upon poor Florian who had looked for nothing less than such a distinction. Florian had never written a line in the Provençal dialect but was sleeping peacefully among the roses at Sceaux, in a cemetery overflowing with blossom, the sweetest, sunniest spot of all the world in spring. This was quite I must admit, however, that the first enough. The félibres decided to or- expedition was charming. All Proganize a pilgrimage to his grave. They vence was there, quivering with pride determined to secure, each year, some and excitement. And the north entered person of distinction to conduct the ex- frankly into the spirit of the thing. ercises; and they applied first to the There were four or five of us present, great men of their own country, to who represented in an informal way, Daudet, Zola, Paul Arène and Benja- the criticism of Paris; and who asked min Constant. But they had, of course, nothing better than to expand in the to provide a constant succession of new sunshine, and intoxicate ourselves with tenors; and when they had exhausted the same. The leader of our contingent the south, they turned their attention was Henri Fouquier, who made, on an to the north. They appealed to the average, two speeches a day, marked good nature of Ernest Renan, who was by a grace and a philosophic spirit that a Bréton; of M. Jules Claretie, who is were truly Athenian. The performfrom Limoge; of M. François Coppeé, ances lasted a week, and the time who is Parisian of the Parisians. Later slipped by like a dream. It was a pethey summoned to the tomb of Florian, riod of delicious vagabondage, along M. Henrik Ibsen, Count Tolstoi, M. dusty highways, and through the cool, Maurice Mæterlinck; it mattered little steep streets of ancient cities. And the whom provided only the trumpets of programme kept its promises. There the press made public proclamation of was a statue, or at least a memorial the circumstance. tablet, ready for us, at every crossway. It is incredible, the number of illustrious men, who have been born in that remarkable country! When we reached Orange we found the little town overflowing. There was not a room to be had, nor a bed, nor so much as a truss of hay. I can see our party still, dragging its own valises, and humbly requesting at every door a hospitality which was amiably refused. Weary of the quest we sat ourselves down, at last, on the steps of the Triumphal Arch, and resolved to disconcert our illfortune by a double dose of gaiety. Then the beloved senior member of our band, Francisque Sarcey, had a happy inspiration.

Eventually, however, the amiable chevalier, the gentle father of "Estelle" ceased to pique the curiosity of the public. He became as old a story as the rosary of Nauterre. It was necessary to open a new vein and revive declining interest by some master-stroke. Then it was that one ingenious félibre, to whom posterity may yet raise a temple, cast his eyes upon the Roman theatre at Orange. Was it not a sublime thought, that of restoring these ruins to life, and bringing in the first artists of the Comédie Francaise to play the immortal masterpieces of the classic drama in that place, amid purely "félibrean" accessories? The occasion might also be utilized for the inauguration of twenty busts, and the delivery

"The college!" he exclaimed.
"Where's the college?"

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