We thus found many peculiar people in the varied experiences of _nos pensions_. We found often learning and often culture, but more vulgarity than we did refinement, more splendor than delicacy of habit, more blatant ignorance than culture, more _sans gene_ than dignity of manners and character. It is always thus in any mere "cosmopolitan mess," any "hotch-potch of nationalities." For the eccentric and obnoxious types are always and everywhere those most largely _en evidence_, while the gentle and refined nestles closest to the cool, still, mossy ground, leaving sunny flaunting to wider blooms and stronger perfumes. A RANDOM SHOT. An existence, if even a dull one, in a large and busy city full of life, when contrasted in the mind of a romantic young lady of eighteen summers with an enforced captivity in an isolated cottage by the sea-shore, grows to possess charms and an excitement which, until so considered, may have remained totally unappreciated. Could anything be more depressing than the knowledge that this latter condition must be endured with no other companion than a hypochondriacal papa, whose ailings so monopolized his time and attention that a daughter's happiness sunk into insignificance? Little wonder that she should melt into tears at so undesirable a prospect, that she should pity herself and her luckless fate, and that, when fully realizing the depths of loneliness into which she was to be precipitated for five long, weary months, she should jump at the dismal conclusion that her doll was stuffed with the most inferior variety of saw-dust and wish with lachrymose sincerity that she were dead and buried and out of this world of sorrow. Papa might then wish that he had been more considerate. Perhaps; but at that particular moment he was contemplatively assimilating his fish, and that process admitted of no consideration whatever beyond that of the fish itself. So when his daughter raised her tearful eyes to his saffron countenance across the board she found no signs in it of the sympathy she felt so much need of. What could she expect, anyway? Dr. Nevercure had been consulted, and this time felt that something desperate must be done. His patient had persistently refused to pronounce himself in any degree benefited by the long course of physic which he had prescribed, and in fact had become an elephant upon his professional hands; and thus, as a last resort, he had recommended an entire change of air and perfect quiet, with a periodical harmless dose for the sake of appearances. Nevercure must be obeyed; the patient himself, since it seemed to be his delight to fancy himself an invalid, must naturally be supposed to find a pleasure in the remedies for his sufferings, and therefore evinced no regret whatever at the leaden prospects, but, on the contrary, made a most exasperating exhibition of saintly resignation, very galling to the young lady, who considered herself the only one really injured.