very seriously, these Burgundian peasants, just as our own country folks do. The violinist of the village had no great variety of music in his _répertoire_, and the peasant couples, solemnly circling round and round with their hands on each others’ shoulders, displayed little of that characteristic gaiety of France which we hear so much about. Down below, in front of the windows on the benches outside, the men drank steadily and talked, till it became too cold, while the women sitting by, knitting their stockings, sometimes threw in a word. They made a great deal more noise than similar assemblies do in England, but there was not much more mirth. Very often a passing show, a travelling establishment of pedlar’s wares--a “Cheap Jack,” or at the worst, a dentist in a triumphal car, making their last rounds before the winter set in, would arrive at Latour, and this made Sunday very piquant, before everything succumbed under the chills of the declining season. Madame Dupré at the Lion d’Or, in her whitest cap, with her long ear-rings, occupied the large chair on these Sundays, leaving the waiting to Auguste, and Baptiste, and Jeanne from the kitchen, whose holiday it was to emerge from that hot and stifling place, putting also long ear-rings in her ears, and a cap that might have been starched in Paris, it was so _comme il faut_. Jeanne liked to show herself in the _salle_ among all the people on these Sunday nights. But Baptiste for his part was always seeking to get away. He stole up to the dancing-room to have one waltz with his Blanchette, then rushed down to get a _chope_ for Jean Pierre, or a new bottle of _piquette_ for Père Roussel, or the absinthe which the little city clerk, who had come to help M. le Notaire, thought it fine to call for. And thus the Sunday evenings went on. Madame la Comtesse would have liked to shut up the _auberges_ and have Sunday kept as in England, if she could; and Madame Vincent, the Précepteur’s wife, had fixed her reception for Sunday in order to prevent her husband and the notary from patronising the vulgar popular meeting in the Lion d’Or. But neither of these great ladies influenced the village. The first it regarded as a hostile power, whom to thwart was one of the first of its duties, the other as a laughing-stock. Mr Goulburn walked about the village for the first Sunday evening, and amused himself, while his daughters at the window saw all the rude little frolicking at a distance--the dancing-room with its open windows, the oil-lamps burning hot and smoky in the gloom, the dancers gyrating, not always in time, to the squeak of the village fiddle; and down below, the light in the windows of the _salle_ at the Lion d’Or broken by the figures of the people who sat outside. The girls were not so soon bored as he was. He was a man who liked to be popular, as has been said. He went in to pay his respects to Madame Dupré and made her his little compliments.