came in and seated themselves it was easy to guess that to dine was the only amusement they proposed to themselves for the evening, and as we drank our coffee and watched their dinner through its stately and solid progress, we began to think that there are few greater fallacies than the general belief that the French middle-classes are small eaters as compared with the English. That the shopkeeper-like man and the fuzzy-headed woman were the givers of the feast, and the parents of the frightful and gluttonous child, was apparent from their disparaging criticisms of the soup and their indulgence of their offspring, but it was necessary for the guest to endure from the child a kiss that, as some one says, was also a baptism, for us to feel that she was no relation to it, unless one of the very poorest kind. The whole party, as it went steadily through their _menu_ of ten courses, without omitting the nethermost leek in the salad, opened our eyes, as we have said, to the staying qualities of the French appetite, and it was privileged to demonstrate for us that the mysterious little tumblers of water and peppermint that had been brought in with our finger-glasses were for the fell purpose of rinsing out the mouth before proceeding to coffee and liqueurs. It was a solace to us during our long wait at the hotel; and monsieur’s dexterity with the macaroni cheese and his knife, and madame’s gesticulations with a bitten peach, were each in their way agreeable and instructive. The _dame seule_ is an unusual feature in French travelling, especially at night, and it seemed to us, while we wandered down the long platform of the Bastide, with twenty minutes to spare, that we could not do better than get into the carriage reserved for ladies only. But one glance into that fastness was enough. A mamma, a white-capped ‘_nou-nou_,’ an underling, an infant, and three children (two of them in tears) were already in possession, and beginning the first of the meals that experience had taught us would continue through the night. The next carriage was empty; better the maniac or the inebriate, better even the Government cigar--these things were among the possibilities, but we chanced them. They none of them happened. We adopted the tried stratagem of pulling down the blinds and holding the handle from inside, and had the satisfaction of hearing the possible maniacs, drunkards, and smokers of French tobacco remark to each other, after they had tried the handle, that it was either a mail-van or a reserved carriage.