It always amuses me when I ask a friend if she is going abroad in the spring, to have her say "Hush!" with a frightened glance towards the door. "I am; but I do not want the servants to know, or the horrid things would leave me!" Poor, simple lady! They knew it before you did, and had discussed the whole matter over their "tea" while it was an almost unuttered thought in your mind. If they have not already given you notice, it is because, on the whole your house suits them well enough for the present, while they look about. Do not worry your simple soul, trying to keep anything from them. They know the amount of your last dressmaker's bill, and the row your husband made over it. They know how much you would have liked young "Croesus" for your daughter, and the little tricks you played to bring that marriage about. They know why you are no longer asked to dine at Mrs. Swell's, which is more than you know yourself. Mrs. Swell explained the matter to a few friends over her lunch-table recently, and the butler told your maid that same evening, who was laughing at the story as she put on your slippers! Before we blame them too much, however, let us remember that they have it in their power to make great trouble if they choose. And considering the little that is made in this way, we must conclude that, on the whole, they are better than we give them credit for being, and fill a trying situation with much good humor and kindliness. The lady who is astonished that they take so little interest in her, will perhaps feel differently if she reflects how little trouble she has given herself to find out their anxieties and griefs, their temptations and heart-burnings; their material situation; whom they support with their slowly earned wages, what claims they have on them from outside. If she will also reflect on the number of days in a year when she is "not herself," when headaches or disappointments ruffle her charming temper, she may come to the conclusion that it is too much to expect all the virtues for twenty dollars a month. A little more human interest, my good friends, a little more indulgence, and you will not risk finding yourself in the position of the lady who wrote me that last summer she had been obliged to keep open house for "'Cook' tourists!" No. 22--An English Invasion of the Riviera When sixty years ago Lord Brougham, _en route_ for Italy, was thrown from his travelling berline and his leg was broken, near the Italian hamlet of Cannes, the Riviera was as unknown to the polite world as the centre of China. The _grand tour_ which every young aristocrat made with his tutor, on coming of age, only included crossing from France into Italy by the Alps. It was the occurrence of an unusually severe winter in Switzerland that turned Brougham aside into the longer and less travelled route _via_ the Corniche, the marvellous Roman road at that time fallen into oblivion, and little used even by the local peasantry.