hung up inside she couldn't have accounted for. There was no other habitation anywhere near; no cart or vehicle of any kind could have got there. We followed a narrow path, hardly visible in the long grass, and the horses had to pick their way--one couldn't imagine a more convenient trysting-place for vagabonds and tramps. It seems incredible that such things should go on at our doors, so to speak, but it is very difficult to get at them. Our keepers and M. de M., whose property touches ours, have had various members of the gang arrested, but they always begin again. The promiscuity of living is something awful, girls and young men squatting and sleeping in the same room on heaps of dirty rags. There have been some arrests for infanticide, when a baby's appearance and disappearance was too flagrant, but the girls don't care. They do their time of prison, come out quite untamed by prison discipline, and begin again their wild, free life. One doesn't quite understand the farmer who gives any shelter to such a bad lot, but I fancy there is a tacit understanding that his hares and rabbits must be left unmolested. It is amusing to see the keepers when they suspect poachers are in their woods. When the leaves are off they can see at a great distance, and with their keen, trained eyes make out quite well when a moving object is a hare, or a roebuck, or a person on all fours, creeping stealthily along. They have powerful glasses, too, which help them very much. They, too, have their various tricks, like the poachers. As the gun-barrel is seen at a great distance when the sun strikes it, they cover it with a green stuff that takes the general tint of the leaves and the woods, and post themselves, half hidden in the bushes, near some of the quarries, where the poachers generally come. Then they give a gun to an under-strapper, telling him to stand in some prominent part of the woods, _his_ gun well in sight. That, of course, the poachers see at once, so they make straight for the other side, and often fall upon the keepers who are lying in wait for them. As a general rule, they don't make much resistance, as they know the keepers will shoot--not to kill them, but a shot in the ankle or leg that will disable them for some time. I had rather a weakness for one poaching family. The man was young, good-looking, and I don't really believe a bad lot, but he had been unfortunate, had naturally a high temper, and couldn't stand being howled at and sworn at when things didn't go exactly as the patron wanted; consequently he never stayed in any place, tried to get some other work, but was only fit for the woods, where he knew every tree and root and the habits and haunts of all the animals. He had a pretty young wife and two children, who had also lived in the woods all their lives, and could do nothing else. The wife came to see me one day to ask for some clothes for herself and the children, which I gave, of course, and then tried mildly to