Meanwhile, in the heart of the child there remains always a weary pain that lies on his childish life as a stone may lie on a flower. "I killed them," he says often to himself, thinking of the two little white brothers frozen to death on Martinswand that cruel night; and he does the things that are told him, and is obedient, and tries to be content with the humble daily duties that are his lot, and when he says his prayers at bedtime always ends them so: "Dear God, do let the little lambs play with Findelkind that is in heaven." OUIDA. HORSE-RACING IN FRANCE. CONCLUDING PAPER. By the end of July the dispersion of the racing fraternity has become general. Some have gone into the provinces to lead the pleasant life of the chateau; some are in the Pyrenees, eating trout and _cotelettes d'izard_ at Luchon; while those whom the Paris season has quite worn out, or put in what they would call too "high" a condition, are refitting at Mont Dore or else at Vichy, which is the Saratoga of France--with this difference, that nobody goes to Vichy unless he is really ill, and that very few were ever known to get married there. But if our friend the sportsman should happen to have nothing the matter with him, and should know of nothing better to do during the summer than to go where his equine instincts would lead him, he may spend the month of July at least in following what is called "the Norman circuit." This consists of a series of meetings at different places, either on the coast or very near the Channel, in that green land of Normandy which is to France what the blue-grass region of Kentucky is to America--the great horse-raising province of the country. Here the circuit begins with the Beauvais meeting, always largely attended by reason of its proximity to Paris and to the numerous chateaux, all occupied at this season of the year, and in one of which, at Mouchy-le-Chastel, the duc de Mouchy entertains a large and distinguished company. Sunday and Tuesday are the days for races at Beauvais, Monday being given up to pigeon-shooting. Then follow in quick succession the _courses_ of Amiens, Abbeville, Rouen, Havre and Caen; and in all these places the daily programme will be found to be a very varied one--too much so, indeed, to suit the taste of the English, whose notions of the fitness of things are offended by the sight of a steeple-chase and a flat-race on the same track. The Normans, on the contrary, finding even this double attraction insufficient, add to it the excitement of a trotting-match in harness and under the saddle. And such trotting! "Allais! marchais!" shouts the starter in good Norman, and away go the horses, dragging their lumbering, rattling Norman carts, guided by equally ponderous Norman peasants, over a track that is sure to be heavy or else too hard--conditions sufficient of themselves to account for the fact that the time made by these provincial trotters has not by any