which may be amusing to tourists in high spirits, but to the timid and troubled English girl was the strangest travesty of existence. The mixture of small discomforts with great troubles is perhaps the combination above all others which procures most entire and complete confusion in life. And the want of a room to sit in other than that wooden bedroom, where every movement of a chair jarred upon the bare planks, began after a while to mingle in Helen’s mind with all the painful circumstances of their flight, so that she scarcely knew what it was that made her so wretched, so disjoined from all her past. Twice a day the little party ate in company with some of the best people in Sainte-Barbe. M. le Notaire, who was unmarried, an old bachelor, and M. le Maire, who was a widower, took their meals regularly at the Lion d’Or. They tied their napkins round their bottle of wine when they left after one meal, and tucked them under their chins when they next sat down. On Sunday there was an officer who came in his uniform, with his sword clanking, who impressed Janey with great awe, accompanied by his wife and their little boy and _bonne_, who sat down next her charge and dined too, cutting the child’s meat for him, and having a little wine poured out for her by her mistress from the family bottle. Janey could not eat her own dinner, so absorbed was she in watching this party. She pulled Helen’s dress to call her attention a dozen times in a minute. “Oh! what would nurse say?” she cried, with big eyes of astonishment. “Look, Helen! he has some of that that you would not let me have, and he is so little--much more little than me. And he has dot wine: and oh, look! he has put his knife in his mouth--he will kill himself. And now he has his hand in, the nasty little boy!” “Cela amuse mademoiselle de voir manger mon petit,” said the lady across the table in a tone of offence. Helen blushed as if she had been caught in a mortal sin. “Oh no, madame--only--elle ne sait pas----” she murmured in apology. “He has dot his knife in his mouth, and that will kill him,” said Janey. “She ought to tell him. Oh, little boy, little boy! _couteau--bouche!_” she cried, with the anxiety of her age to put everything right. Mr Goulburn tried to apologise. “My little girl thinks it is her business to set everybody right. She takes it upon her to regulate my conduct and manners. I hope you will forgive the little impertinent. Besides, she is astonished to see the _bonne_ by your side, madame, at table. It is contrary to our English usage. Forgive her,” he said. “Oh, _de rien_, monsieur,” said the French lady, politely. “We all know that England is the most aristocratic of countries. Do not apologise; there is great good in that--the _canaille_ are kept in their place.” “The _canaille_ are in all places, madame,” said M. le Maire. “They are among us when we least suspect it. Persons of the best manners, the most irreproachable in appearance----”