But her life is not altogether or even chiefly passed in England. Every year with the approach of autumn she flits to the Riviera. Three slaves, her husband, her daughter, and her maid, follow humbly the triumphal procession of her invalid carriage, and thus she arrives at the charming villa where for the next few months she will hold her court. For the confirmed invalid is a more highly exalted being in Nice than in London. Whereas beneath our own dull skies there is still some merit in being robust and healthy, in the South of France, precedence both in rank and social influence, often varies directly according to the nature and length of an illness. The Invalid Lady, therefore, is in an unassailable position, and may permit to herself slight indulgences, which in London, might wreck her career as an invalid. She establishes an afternoon for tea and ices and gossip, she attaches to herself a foreign prince, she even organises pic-nics, and enters upon a mild flirtation with a middle-aged Baronet, she reads French novels of the newest school and discusses their tendency with a long-haired lyricist who has lately published a volume of poems entitled, _Love and Languor_. Once every winter the Invalid Lady gets up a bazaar for the benefit of the _Petites Soeurs des Pauvres_. Her husband lends his garden, her daughter writes all the letters, makes all the purchases, and, with her young friends, completes all the arrangements, whilst the Invalid Lady herself looks on in occasional disapproval of the work that others are doing. When the great day arrives, and all the company of intending purchasers is gathered together in the garden, the Invalid is drawn gently into their midst in a long, wheeled chair. She is robed in a tea-gown of exquisite taste and design, the prevailing colour of which may be the new "_Eau de Carmes_," mixed with ivory-coloured chiffons. As it is thoroughly understood that she cannot walk, her feet, which peep from under her laces, are arrayed in delicately open and striped silk stockings, and in tiny shoes, which are decorated each with a single diamond sparkling in the centre of a black bow. Thus apparelled, she is wheeled slowly about, to receive the congratulations of her intimates on her charitable spirit, and on the organising power which would do a strong man credit. In course of time her daughter marries, and leaves her. She then establishes by her side a poor but devoted friend, with whom she eventually quarrels for not speaking with sufficient respect of one of the five mortal ailments with which she believes herself to be afflicted. Death, whom she apparently courts with a weary longing, will have none of her. The hale and hearty drop off, but the invalid, querulous, weak, and hysterical, survives into a remote future, and having become a great grandmother, fades out of existence in the possession of all her faculties. * * * * * NOVEL ADVICE FROM LINCOLNSHIRE.