Rapture inexpressible, except by shrill shrieks and capers. The plump little girl gravely advances and assists at the examination of the packet, popping comfits into her tiny mouth with a placid melancholy, which I have often observed in fat and rosy faces. Meanwhile, the organ-grinder has at last stopped grinding, has lowered his box, and is eating a plateful of cold meat and bread which the old woman has brought out to him. The landlord and his wife have disappeared. The young Frenchwoman on the garden-bench has risen, and come toward the children; and now, from a doorway leading into the house, issues the big blond man we caught a momentary glimpse of at the window. The little boy abandons the sugar-plums to his playfellow, and crying "Papa! papa!" darts to the new comer, who stoops and gathers him up to his broad breast, in his large arms and hands, kissing him fondly and repeatedly. The child responds with like effusion. The father's great red face, with its peaked yellow beard, contrasts touchingly, somehow, with the wee pale phiz of his little son. {109} The child's tiny white pads pat the jolly cheeks and pull the yellow beard. Then the man in the blouse sets his son carefully on the ground, and kisses the young Frenchwoman who stands by. The big man has evidently been absent awhile from his family. "How goes it, my sister?" says he. "Well, my brother," she answers quietly. "Thou hast seen Auguste dance. Thou hast seen how well, and strong, and happy he is--the good God be thanked." "And after him, thee, my good sister," says the big man, affectionately. We had been called in to dinner by this time, but the open window of our eating-room looked into the court close to where the group stood. We observed that Mademoiselle Marie had remained sole possessor of the packet of sweets; and that the little boy, content to have got his papa, made no effort to assert his rights in them. The big papa interfered, saying, "Mais, mais, la petite.... Give at least of the bonbons to thy comrade. It is only fair." "Let her eat them, Jean," put in his sister, with naive feminine generosity and justice. "They are so unwholesome for Auguste, seest thou?" The big man laughed, lit his pipe, and the three went away into the little garden, where they strolled, talking in the summer twilight. We came happily to an anchor here, in this foggy little haven, and finding we could secure, at tolerably moderate charges, the accommodation we required, made up our minds to stay at this little hotel for the few weeks of our absence from Brussels. II. Next morning we were breakfasting in the garden under a trellis of hop-leaves, when the big man in the blouse came up the gravel-walk, with his small son on his shoulder. They were making a tremendous noise. The little boy was pulling his father's great red ear; he affected to bellow with anguish, his roaring voice topped by the child's shrill, gleeful treble. We saluted the new comers in a neighborly manner.