Passion Week, in London, is distinctly an ascetic period; there is really an approach to sackcloth and ashes. Private dissipation is suspended; most of the theatres and music-halls are closed; the huge dusky city seems to take on a still sadder coloring and a sort of hush steals over its mighty uproar. At such a time, for a stranger, London is not cheerful. Arriving there, during the past winter, about Christmas-time, I encountered three British Sundays in a row--a spectacle to strike terror into the stoutest heart. A Sunday and a "bank-holiday," if I remember aright, had joined hands with a Christmas Day and produced the portentous phenomenon to which I allude. I betrayed, I suppose, some apprehension of its oppressive character, for I remember being told in a consolatory way that I needn't fear; it would not come round again for another year. This information was given me apropos of that surprising interruption of one's relations with the laundress which is apparently characteristic of the period. I was told that all the washerwomen were drunk, and that, as it would take them some time to revive, I must not look for a speedy resumption of these relations. I shall not forget the impression made upon me by this statement; I had just come from Paris and it almost sent me spinning back. One of the incidental _agrements_ of life in the latter city had been the knock at my door on Saturday evenings of a charming young woman with a large basket covered with a snowy napkin on her arm, and on her head a frilled and fluted muslin cap which was an irresistible advertisement of her art. To say that my admirable _blanchisseuse_ was _sober_ is altogether too gross a compliment; but I was always grateful to her for her russet cheek, her frank, expressive eye, her talkative smile, for the way her charming cap was poised upon her crisp, dense hair and her well-made dress was fitted to her well-made waist. I talked with her; I _could_ talk with her; and as she talked she moved about and laid out her linen with a delightful modest ease. Then her light step carried her off again, talking, to the door and with a brighter smile and an "Adieu, monsieur!" she closed it behind her, leaving one to think how stupid is prejudice and how poetic a creature a washerwoman may be. London, in December, was livid with sleet and fog, and against this dismal background was offered me the vision of a horrible old woman in a smoky bonnet, lying prone in a puddle of whisky! She seemed to assume a kind of symbolic significance, and she almost frightened me away.