One must not ascribe the difference solely to shyness or modesty, since the blood-vessels of different persons respond in various ways. In a very warm room all the young girls have not equally flushed cheeks, and if we pay attention when, on leaving a company, we touch the hands of a great number of people who have been together for several hours in the same room, we may easily notice the very great difference in the temperature of the hands. In such circumstances, to have warm or cold hands only means to have expanded or contracted blood-vessels. Besides this action of warmth or cold, which is, so to speak, local, there is another central action much more important to us--that which produces the pallor, or flush of emotion. The nerve-centres can, by means of the vaso-motor nerves, greatly alter the circulation in the various parts of the body, as we all know from the continual changes which the colour of the skin undergoes. It is not necessary to mention the studies made on animals; the observations which can be made on man suffice to show how this nervous mechanism works. I know several persons whose blood-vessels differ in sensitiveness on the right and left side, and who, therefore, feel the effects of emotion more intensely on one side of the body. At balls, on excursions in the mountains, and walks in the sunshine, the attentive observer will notice great differences in the colour of the two sides of the face. One often becomes aware of this from the perspiration, which is more abundant on one part of the forehead than on the other. My sister, for instance, when dancing, has one cheek very much flushed, the other less so. With her, it is the right side of the body which possesses more sensitive blood-vessels, which are, therefore, more easily tired by exertion, heat, or emotion; consequently this half of the face becomes redder, and receives a greater quantity of blood. A few days ago we went for a walk together into the mountains. Looking down from a certain point we saw in the valley the funeral of a child. A girl carried the little corpse, covered with flowers, on her head. The bells of the village were ringing the 'Gloria,’ the funeral train, with the priest at the head, appeared and vanished from time to time between the green trees; children ran behind, carrying candles and scattering flowers. It was a splendid autumn evening. We had seen that little cherub with its golden hair just a few days before, healthy and beautiful, enjoying itself at play, and now it was to be hidden for ever under the cypresses of the churchyard. It was our maid who carried the little one on her head; as she had said to us, 'I must take him to be buried, because I am his godmother.’ My sister told me that as she watched she felt a shiver, as though she had goose-skin all down the right side of the body, from head to foot.