"Oh no, I don't _think_ I shall be delighted," she returned. Then I asked her for a flower, and apparently much amused she presented me with a water forget-me-not, then she sauntered on to a small cottage close by. Arrived there, she turned round and faced me, her hand on the gate, and after gazing steadily for some moments exclaimed, "Delighted at going back to school--who ever heard such a thing?" and, bursting into a peal of musical child-laughter, she went into the cottage. One would look for curtseys in the Flower Walk in Kensington Gardens as soon as in the hamlet of this remarkably self-possessed little maid. Her manner was exceptional; but, if we must lose the curtsey, and the rural little ones cease to mimic that pretty drooping motion of the nightingale, the kitty wren, and wheatear, cannot our village pastors and masters teach them some less startling and offensive form of salutation than the loud "Hullo!" with which they are accustomed to greet the stranger within their gates? I shall finish with another story which might be entitled "The Democrat against Curtseying." The scene was a rustic village, a good many miles from any railroad station, in the south of England. Here I made the acquaintance and was much in the society of a man who was not a native of the place, but had lived several years in it. Although only a working man, he had, by sheer force of character, made himself a power in the village. A total abstainer and non-smoker, a Dissenter in religion and lay-preacher where Dissent had never found a foothold until his coming, and an extreme Radical in politics, he was naturally something of a thorn in the side of the vicar and of the neighbouring gentry. But in spite of his extreme views and opposition to old cherished ideas and conventions, he was so liberal-minded, so genial in temper, so human, that he was very much liked even by those who were his enemies on principle; and they were occasionally glad to have his help and to work with him in any matter that concerned the welfare of the very poor in the village. After the first bitterness between him and the important inhabitants had been outlived and a _modus vivendi_ established, the vicar ventured one day to remonstrate with the good but mistaken man on the subject of curtseying, which had always been strictly observed in the village. The complaint was that the parishioner's wife did not curtsey to the vicaress, but on the contrary, when she met or passed her on the road she maintained an exceedingly stiff, erect attitude, which was not right, and far from pleasant to the other. "Is it then your desire," said my democratic friend, "that my wife shall curtsey to your wife when they meet or pass each other in the village?" "Certainly, that is my wish," said the vicar. "Very well," said the other; "my wife is guided by me in such matters, and I am very happy to say that she is an obedient wife, and I shall tell her that she is to curtsey to your wife in future."