ment of the Mayenne, hath been inscribed upon the census tables of the young men of the commune of La Haye Traversaine, who have competed at the drawing of the class of 1866, in the canton of Mayenne (West), and that he has been exempted from the service for default of height.

"In faith of which we to him have delivered the present certificate.

"Done at Mayenne the 16 January, 1877. "For the subprefect on journey of revision. "The delegate-J. Raulin" (I think it is).

There, Bo, I have now given you the four papers you must make your marquis produce, or corresponding ones, according to his circumstances. As I read the certificate of exemption it was amusing to see the way Pommier drew himself up to the full of the scant measure of height nature has dealt out to him, and how he tried to look knowing and proud as he said— "But yes, Mademoiselle, I indeed had the luck to be drawn so long before I had done growing. How unhappy I should have been if I had been as tall as I am now!"

"Now then, I hope all is in order," said I to Pommier on his return from the mairie. "Yes, Mademoiselle, all I want for my civil marriage; but Mademoiselle Adolphine has not yet got her papers, and we have not yet heard from Monsieur my curé. And please, Mademoiselle, will you ask Monsieur whether he will permit me to present my intended to him, and to you, and to Mademoiselle your sister?" I told him he might bring her on Sunday evening after dinner.

During dinner on Sunday we commenced pitying the poor girl coming, as it were, just for us to criticise her, so we determined to make things as easy as possible. About nine o'clock Monsieur Pommier and Mademoiselle Wangermann were announced. She is very good looking, dark, and tall— so tall, in fact, that she would not have escaped for "default of height' had she been drawn for service in the army. She was plainly dressed in dark stuff, and had an open-knitted white capeline very gracefully thrown over her hair, with its point reaching No. 214.-VOL. XXXVI.

her forehead. I suppose she had been thinking also of how to make the interview as easy as possible for us, for she sailed into the room like a duchess, cool and collected, made a low bow to Monsieur, then bowing to us also, wished us the good evening, and said how pleased she had felt when Monsieur Pommier asked her to come and pay her respects to us; how honoured she felt to make our acquaintance; how she hoped that in the future the marriage of Monsieur Pommier with herself would not change the good relations existing between us, &c., &c. Long before her polite phrases were exhausted, Pommier had escaped, murmuring something about the garden. But she had no need of his support, and took good care that the conversation did not flag. Neither did she forget business by reminding us that she was a dressmaker, and would be proud to, &c., &c.; but this was brought in very delicately. When Pommier returned, we condoled with him upon all the trouble he had had with his papers, especially as some of them appeared to us so useless. But she would not have it that these formalities were useless. "How,

Mesdames, without them, could one know that that, for example, Monsieur Pommier was not already married?' Poor Pommier! he did not look just then like an intending bigamist; but words failing him to make a proper disclaimer, he had to give a nod, and-"But yes, she has reason; " to show his sense of the necessity of all possible precautions. Speaking of the delay in procuring the baptismal certificate, the Wangermann said something about not waiting for it when all her papers had come, as the civil marriage was sufficiently binding; but Pommier blazed up at this like a good oldfashioned peasant as he is, so she at once drew in.

As regarded her papers, the only one wanting was her act of birth. As she was born in Belgium and did

Y

not know in what town, and as her parents were dead, this paper gave her some trouble. Pommier got very disquieted about it, almost as if he suspected her having ever been born, as she could not produce this necessary proof of it. "I cannot understand people, Mademoiselle, who could lose so important a paper. I cannot understand them!" "But, Pommier, what about your own certificate of baptism?-that is also delaying things, you know," said I, thinking I had him there. "For that, Mademoiselle, I got Monsieur the curé to write to the curé of my country, and he has sent me this letter." And a very kind letter it was, witnessing equally to the good feeling of the sender and to the good character of the receiver. The curé explained that he could read only a part of the first letter, and that that part did not include either the signature or the address, so he did not know how to reply. I hope the letter was not a fair specimen of the Wangermann penmanship. The certificate in the curé's letter was this:

"Chatillon-sur-Colmont, Diocese of Laval. "Extract from the Register of Baptisms. "The 25th March, one thousand eight hundred and forty six, I the undersigned Louis Armange, vicaire (curate) of this parish, have baptized Réné François, born at ten o'clock this morning, of the legitimate marriage of Adolphe Pommier, and of Rosalie Cerisier, living at the village of Bas Noyers.

"The godfather was Réné Mulot, and the godmother Françoise Gerault. The father present. All have declared not to know how to sign.

"The register is signed-Armange, priest, vicaire.

"For a true copy, E. Dureau, priest, curé. "At Chatillon, the 9th January, 1877."

By the time Adolphine had got her papers Lent had come, and so the wedding could not take place. It was, therefore, arranged to have it in Easter-week. Her aunt, with whom she lives, and who in turn lives with the coal merchant, had persuaded him to regularise her position at the same time; so there was to be a double wedding, and the feast was to be held at their house.

I must tell you some day, Bo, about the Christmas, Easter, and other fêteday customs here, but must now confine myself to our wedding. When the auspicious day arrived, Pommier was almost speechless with excitement about the wedding generally and his clothes in particular. His tailor had promised them, but had not brought them overnight. But about the time to start the trousers arrived. We have no false pride here, and do not keep our private affairs to ourselves. The tailor marches up the street, carefully holding out the trousers so as not to crease them, and everybody looks out of windows at them, or goes out into the street, and feels relieved that at least an instalment has come, and expresses a hope that the rest will not be long. The tailor feels himself important with the responsibility resting upon him, and tells Pommier and all the world to be calm, and count upon him. Then the waistcoat was brought up in equal state; and finally, to the general relief of all, and not more than an hour behindhand, the coat, of course a swallow-tail, was carried home in triumph.

Nor was it only about our place that there was an unwonted stir. From early morning friends had been coming in from the country in their carts to the various inns. The men had on black trousers, blue blouses, and all sorts of head-gear. The best coats and hats, carefully brought in a parcel, were only put on at the last moment at the bride's about-to-be uncle's house, or more frequently in the street in front of it, and the blouse left at the house to be resumed immediately the ceremonial part is over and the joyous part about to begin. The women were nearly all dressed in black, for the good careful souls arrange that their best dress shall serve for all their state occasions, weddings, baptisms, and funerals. Adolphine Marie (I like poking those two names at you) looked very handsome all in white, with veil and orangeflower wreath. This wreath, now

under a glass shade, forms the principal ornament of her best room—a little half-parlour, half-chamber, with a bed in an alcove, as is almost the universal custom here. However poor the girl may be, she always manages to get a white dress and veil to wear at her wedding—that is, if she dares to claim her right to wear the virgin colour for, alas! some dare not. The other bride wore black, being, as Virginie explained to us, a widow carrying the mourning for her defunct husband up to the last possible moment a touching devotion to his memory, is it not?

Of course we had received the usual faire part, asking us "to assist at the nuptial benediction." We went also to the mairie to the civil marriage, to do honour to our Pommier. This enabled us to see the procession. The bridegroom went to the bride's house, and there all were assembled, awaiting him and his best man. Poor Pommier looked very red at finding himself the observed of all observers, and redder still when he heard that his best man had not arrived. Besides the wedding party proper, there was a christening party also; for as here they do not ring the church bells for weddings, but do for christenings, they always try to arrange so that the bridegroom and bride may be at the same time godfather and godmother of some friend's baby. By this arrangement the wished-for chiming is secured; and as here the godfather is expected to make presents to the godmother and not to the godchild, its economy would recommend it if the orthodox presents were not sweetmeats.

Pommier was not the only one who was getting fidgety about the best man, who was our village smith; for the bridesmaid, a young lady with the most wonderfully dressed hair and multitudinous pink ribbons, was letting her face get pinker than her ribbons. Her confusion was being enjoyed by a pretty little dark-haired girl whom you will remember we used to call Mademoiselle Sairey Gamp from

her mother's profession-who had not been invited to the wedding, and who, all the world says, is the young smith's sweetheart-or rather would be, but for her want of dot; he himself being, in his way, the best parti and the beau of the place.

At last he came as coolly as possible, as if he knew that punctuality is not the politeness of blacksmiths. He went along, shaking hands with one half of the people with his right hand and the other half with his left, as if he were climbing hand over hand up to his place in the procession. And then Pink Ribbons gave a triumphant glance at Mademoiselle Sairey - a glance that prevented her from noticing that which her squire also sent in the same direction. Had she seen it she would not have smiled so complacently; and as it was, it fully consoled the dark-haired beauty for her rival's seeming triumph.

At the mairie, Monsieur the Mayor kept us waiting a long time--I suppose while he brushed his whiskers and put on his tri-coloured scarf and sash, the grandeur of which quite justified the delay. He did not keep us long at the ceremony, for all being in order there were not many formalities to fulfil. But the registers of this place now possess the beautiful autograph of a witness to an "act of marriage that hereafter may be quite priceless. As we went out of the mairie, I noticed that somebody had put a wreath on our great townsman, Jean Racine's statue, that made it look a little less like a man wrapping a bathing towel round himself on coming out of the neighbouring river.

As it was getting late, thanks to the mayor and the groomsman, the procession took the shortest road to the church, up the steep street, where you remember the old poacher lives who gives their chief employment to our fine gens d'armes. There is a good

story of the old rascal, how that when he was last in trouble the juge-de-paix said, "Imprisonment does you no good-you seem rather to like

it."

"Mon juge, it is that one appreciates me down there. No sooner do I arrive than I am named chief cook!" And the sinner put his fingers to his lips, and made the motion and the sound as if he were pulling out a long kiss-the motion and sound that precede the "C'est exquis" that winds up a Frenchman's description of his favourite dish.

The procession was still more imposing when we left the quaint old church, for it was headed by the beadle with his staff of office, tipped with a wedding favour. What is the beadle's skull-cap made of? I fancy black fluted leather. Pommier and Madame Pommier were, in their quality of godfather and godmother, throwing handfuls of sweetmeats right and left. Imagine the following they had of the urchindom of La Ferté. We always know when a christening takes place, even when it is at the Chaussée church, on the other side of the river-not by the bell-ringing-for its sound is drowned by the shriller cries of the children. What row equals that of a crowd of children in high glee?

I cannot describe the wedding feast, or rather feasts-for the affair lasted three days, as is usual here, and we did not assist thereat. They began as if business was meant, for all the men at once doffed their broadcloth, and donned their blouses-the change of raiment being chiefly effected, as before, in public. The preparations made are most extravagant. Butter rose in price in our market last Friday, in consequence of the purchases made for this feast. Virginie says thirty-four pounds were bought for it, and I have

no doubt she knows all about it. It seems strange that these economical peasants should be so extravagant at the beginning of their housekeepingspending what would keep them for months. But it may be almost forgiven them when you think that it will be their only extravagance for some twenty years, when they will perhaps repeat it at a senior daughter's wed ding. As I before said, mon oncle-as Pommier has already for months called him-gave the feast, so his and Marie Adolphine's savings will not be diminished. Usually the parents on both sides club together, and jointly provide the wedding entertainment.

After two or three hours' eating and drinking, the guests, with the host and hostess, walked arm-in-arm in procession through the town, and then went and danced in a friend's garden, to the music of the town fanfare, reinforced by a fiddle. In the evening there was more eating and drinking, that lasted far into the night. The next day the feasting promenades and dancing were repeated the brass knocker of an Anglo-Indian wedding was nothing to it. On the third day, as signs appeared of the running out of supplies, many of the guests left, and their desertion enabled the old campaigners who stuck to their posts, to have a grand winding-up supper.

ance.

Two days have since elapsed, and Pommier has just put in an appearI will not distress you by describing him. But have I not given you a long letter, Bo? In return, do likewise. All salute you, including Shim and Tum.

Your ever faithful

A. M. T.