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neighbor,

"Why not?" asked his pausing with his mouth full, and casting a slow and appreciative glance at the solid viands. "I dunnot see aught amiss. Theer's plenty an' more nor plenty, an' th' yäale's noan SO ill neither." This was tantamount to enthusiasm in a North-countryman; but the sense of injury was strong upon Farmer Frith.

"Ye dunnot see aught amiss?" he cried witheringly, "an' theer isn't a single mince-poy!"

As it happened to be a sweltering July day, the absence of this particular dainty might not have been considered astonishing; but now that their attention was drawn to it, the rest of the guests began to feel aggrieved. This was a pretty sort of do! No mincepies! Healths were drunk with a gloomy air, and when Farmer Frith remarked towards the end of the repast that he wouldn't say but what they'd known "jov'aler meetin's," it was felt that he expressed the general opinion.

direction; puss leaves her place of spread table, was overheard to remark ambush among the gooseberry bushes, that this wasn't what he called "a and steps daintily across the threshold; gradely do." there is much squealing and grunting and running to and fro in the pigsties; all the dumb things know it is tea-time. The kettle bubbles on every kitchen-hob. The table is spread in the warmest corner-summer and winter alike with preparations for a good solid meal. After a hard day's work in field or garden the men-folk are not to be put off with a mere snack, and the children can always do "wi' a bit extry." The teapot is set down on the hob; the contents, well stewed and bitter, and rendered still more palatable by a dash of spirits, will make the good-man of the house feel he has had the full worth of that portion of his wage which went to purchase a pound of "best mixed" last Saturday. On the shining fender lies a smoking dish of buttered toast, or it may be a homebaked cake, very solid and pale, with but few raisins imbedded in its stodgy depths, but exceedingly satisfying. Possibly a slice or two of cold bacon is set forth to give a relish to the crusty loaf on the table; and in the houses of the more well-to-do a knuckle of ham or a goodly piece of beef invites the attentions of the farmer and his men. "Eh, I cannot do wi' clemmin' folks," observed a sturdy old housewife once, on being laughingly taken to task for extravagance. "As mich mate as ever they can heyt-an' good drink to 't I give 'em at meal-time an' theer's allus a bite o' summat an' a loaf set yonder o' th' dresser as they con come an' cut at if they'n a mind." The quantity of the food set before them concerns these big-framed hard-working rustics more than its quality; though some of the older men are "a bit 'tickle an' dainty" at times, and upset the equanimity of their "missuses" by calling out for apple-sauce with their pork, and grumbling at the scarcity of gravy with the Sunday beef. Not long ago a portly and red-faced old farmer was observed to lay down his knife and fork at a certain rent-dinner, and, after rolling a dissatisfied eye over the well

But to return to the village.

A few minutes after five every table is surrounded. "Feyther" divests himself of his coat (if he has been wearing one) and his boots; which precaution, besides suiting his own idea of comfort, falls in with his wife's notions of eats and cleanliness; he economy hugely and gulps down cupful after cupful of tea. When the inner man is partially restored he begins to notice external things. He has a grunt in answer to the "missus's" sigh about "yon taxman as looked in again this arternoon," and tells her he saw squire drive past, or that "owd Tommy Latham seems to be warsenin';" or, if he has been to "town," he will perhaps announce that "taters" is down again. By and by his rugged face will crease itself into a slow and good-natured smile, and leaning forward he will uplift the chin of one of the little folk so busily at work with tightly-clenched spoons, and inquire how is our Annie

to-day? or what mischief has our Willie "agate"? laughing loudly, at the lisped response. One or more of the babies will be clambering on his knees presently, and the others will gather round to search his capacious pockets and be regaled with sweets, or "bracelets," as the little girls call the strings of bright-colored beads he brings them, though the chubby wrists are not to be adorned by them, but the round sunburnt necks. Perhaps if "feyther" is of a literary turn he will produce a newspaper from his pocket, folded into a square and greasy little slab. When "th' missus" has "sided" the tea-things, and washed up, and fed the chickens, and put the children to bed, and got through the remainder of her "odd jobs," she will sit down and spell out its contents for the edification of herself and the elder members of her family. Politics are not considered entertaining, nor accounts of the doings of royalty; though a transient excitement is perceptible when it is mentioned that the queen is indisposed, and some one will observe "hoo's gettin' into years same as th' rest on us," with a pleasurable sense of triumph at the discovery. A shipwreck or a good burglary is what the family circle finds most exhilarating unless it be, perhaps, the announcement of the birth of triplets somewhere. Even toothless granny in the corner wakes up to cackle and clap her hands over that.

"Eh, dear o' me! to think on't," says th' missus meditatively. "An' th' queen sent her three pounds! Fancy that now! Hoo'd be pleased I doubt, poor soul. Eh, but however would hoo manage wi' so many? Three on 'em! Hoo'd be very nigh druv mad wi' 'em, I reckon. All skrikin' an' yammerin' together, an' two on 'em wakin' up as like as not, soon's iver hoo'd getten th' third to sleep."

"Happen they'll not live," says "feyther," after ruminating for a moment. "It's a'most to be 'oped not," he adds, casting a sudden anxious glance towards his good dame, who, as the other matrons say, "is nobbut a young

woman yet an' hasn't finished wi' her fam'ly." There is no knowing what may yet be in store for him. But granny presently reassures him by giving it as her opinion that "they twins an' sich-like seldom grow up same's other childer." Then, searching her memory, she begins to relate how she heard once as a bricklayer's wife up Bootle way had three babies at a birth-"or were it four?"

"Ho, ho!" chuckles her son "weren't it five now-or happen six! Put a twothree more to't while yo're at it."

"It were four," cries grandma doggedly. "Theer's no need to laugh. I mind it well. It were four." Mrs. Clark as towd me heerd it fro' her cousin as lived at Bootle-an' hoo said they was all put together in a clothesbasket-mich same as kittens they looked, hoo said-an' folks was tramplin' in an' out fro' morn to neet to look at 'em. An' the mother charged a penny a-piece, for hoo couldn't do wi' sich a many strangers comin' in, yo' known, an' pullin' blankets off th' childer an' handlin' 'em. But they didn't live so long I don't think."

"Feyther" is struck dumb; but mother and the children are much interested, and granny is plied with questions anent this remarkable occurrence for the remainder of the evening.

But it is long past five o'clock when these discussions take place; the teahour is never unduly prolonged, though it is comfortable and restful. There is still much business to be got through before people have time to read newspapers. The pig is to be fed. and sticks for kindling have to be chopped, and "th' garden is gettin' shameful weedy," the missus complains, and "they cabbages mun be thinned out"-she will find plenty of jobs for her gaffer to do while she is busy within.

In certain seasons many of the larger farmhouses are almost deserted at teatime; the men sit down to their “baggin'" in the field. The meek horses stand by the hedges (swinging their tails and extending tentative tremulous lips toward the sweet new hay beneath their hoofs, or the long grass

All unawares indeed, these, our horny-handed brothers, are moulded by their contact with the out-door world; nevertheless their hopes and sympathies are bound up in the hopes and sympathies of the nature that they know; they belong to it in a special manner; this earth which they cultivate is connected with every phase of their lives.

on the bank beside them, or even the trees. When he wanders with his lass leafy thorn boughs. Ned and Jack roar beside the pleasant hedgerows or at them occasionally between their through the teeming fields, do not the lumps of bread and cheese, but they sunshine and the green leaves and the nevertheless contrive to snatch a singing of the larks add zest to his delicious mouthful from time to time, courting? And when the old man and are in some manner refreshed spins yarns in the chimney-corner when they go on again, plodding up about the gallant days of his youth, the furrow, or rattling the noisy will they not abound in details as to machine. The brown fields take on "th' time o' year" and the aspect of wondrous tints of copper and purple the country? at sunset-time, the green plain is a very sea of gold, every upstart hair on Boxer's or Smiler's back is a-glitter with its own tiny aureole; the homely figures of the laborers are transfigured in the evening glow. And when Maggie or Jinny leans over the hedge with the breeze ruffling her hair, her rosy cheeks look rosier than ever, and her whole commonplace little personality is invested with glamour and poetry. Indeed it is perhaps in this enforced recognition of the magic and the glory of common things that lies the chief charm of country life. With this light, these free open spaces, this air-never languorous here in our bonny norththere is beauty and savor everywhere; even when we find no blossom in the hedge, are there not red-brown buds, or curled baby leaves, or red points of light making gleaming outlines to the thorny twigs, or, best of all, delicate glittering frost tracery? And when the hay and clover are "carried," and the lime-trees are hung with seed-pods in knotted fringe, the damp earth has a sweetness of its own, and the russet sea of dying bracken yonder, under the yellowing woodland, sends forth waves of curious spicy fragrance pleasant to the nostrils.

The tillers of the soil, incapable though they may be of giving voice to the impressions produced on them by their surroundings, are nevertheless strongly, if unconsciously, affected by them. As a laborer tells you it is "nice and dowey" when he sets to work at four o'clock in the morning, you see by his contemplative eyes that he is recalling the wonder of the dawn; he is act-' ually feeling the cool, moist freshness, he sees the glory of the sun behind the

The first conscious sensation of the peasant-babe is that of rolling on the sunny sod, the smell of the crushed herbage in his nostrils, his tiny fingers clutching at clover-blooms. Next, he proudly sallies forth to carry dinner to father or brother, with little head scarcely reaching mid-way up the hedge, and round eyes wandering over a brown wilderness till they descry an expectant figure leaning on spade or plough-handle. Later on, promoted

to share the labors of the elders; guid. ing the horses up and down the long furrow-small heavily-shod feet sinking deep at every step, short arms aching as the day wears on; later still, "delving"-spade glittering in the sunlight, breeze fluttering unfastened shirt-sleeves and exposing muscular young arms, young blood leaping with sheer joy of life.

In a few years comes marriage; and the husband and father looks to the soil, his providence, bountiful and kind, for bread for the little mouths at home.

The seasons come and go, and the man's back grows rounder, and his limbs stiffen. Nearer and nearer the earth stoops he, and at last she clasps him to her bosom. He has labored all his days for hire; now he shall possess land of his own. Early and late has he

toiled, hard and long; now he may fold his hands and rest. O, ye visionary reformers, behold the realization of your dreams! behold in this lord absolute of six feet of soil your peasant proprietor! Here, even here, in this city of the dead, he has found Utopia! M. E. FRANCIS.

From Le Monde Moderne. ABOUT FEASTS AND HOLIDAYS.

We can no more imagine a people without holidays than a people without religion.

It is with holidays that religious observances begin, by holidays they are confirmed, developed, revived, and in holidays they end.

Certain festivals survive long after they have been left behind by the evolution of religion. Druidism is dead, but in more countries than one the mistletoe is held sacred to the new year. Paganism is dead but the Carnival is perennial, and though buried by Ash Wednesday every year, it revives as regularly at the appointed season.

All about us, unperceived, new feasts are perhaps announcing new phases of religious feeling destined in the future to a magnificent development. The religion of patriotism, of hero-worship, of labor and that religion of human solidarity which embraces them all these have yet a message to deliver.

At present the word religion suggests fixed dogmas, regular and exclusive institutions. A ritual of pre-arranged and codified forms. But this, after all, is only the body of religion. The soul eludes, because it is within us. As individuals we tend to separate ourselves from others rather than to mingle with them. Once make an effort in the opposite direction, an effort after the things which reconcile and unite, and we shall begin to understand all religions, even that of the future, and to enjoy all festivals, even those of the past.

The egotist, on a day of public rejoicing, stays at home. The business man shrugs his shoulders, and bewails

time lost and money ill-spent. The manufacturer sulkily stops the machinery whose slave he is, hating that men should be idle when times are good. The professional pleasure-seeker always prefers private fètes. The gaiety of the masses annoys him. He thinks it lacks reserve; and the moralist, though for very different reasons, is of the same mind. Seamstresses, dressmakers, cabmen, musicians, and all manner of traffickers in the open air rejoice in public festivals and loudly proclaim the fact. They would like one every day,which would be a little too much. But happy in any case is the man who is able to get out of his rut, stand clear of his daily occupations and his official opinions, and say his homo sum and the rest of it, in all sincerity of heart!

The foremost of the established religions, however strong in the traditions of its own past, has always shown a remarkable power of assimilation in the matter of feasts. Saint Gregory the Great, advised his missionaries in Germany and Britain to adopt the holy days and places of the barbarians, and accommodate them to Christian practice. Christmas is not merely the feast of the nativity of Christ. The time of its celebration and the popular usages which attend it prove it to have been also an astronomical festival common to both Celts and Germans. The yulelog symbolizes the return of the sun after the winter solstice. The Christmas-tree, and the ivy used in decorating the house have a similar significance. The feasts and junketings of the season were once sacrifices to Freyr the Sun who fructifies the Earth. In the month when the sun scorches, came the Feast of Fagots,-afterwards transformed into the Feast of St. John the Baptist. The solstitial character of this feast persisted for a long time, in spite of Episcopal ordinances and Parliamentary injunctions. As late as the 11th of April, 1785, the Parliament of Paris forbade the curé of Saintines in Valois to celebrate matins on St. John's day earlier than four o'clock in the morning, and the people of the parish to remain in the church later than nine

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There is no need, however, to go stumbling in the dark among antique mythologies. Glance at the history of the French monarchy. It was always the king's birthday which was the great national fête. The date was fixed by the monarch's baptismal name. Now, five out of twelve of the sovereigns of the second dynasty were Louis, and of the third, thirteen out of thirty-three not counting Louis-Philippe, who considered St. Philippe his patron, and not St. Louis. The name of Louis is, however, only another form of Clovis, the name of our first Catholic sovereign. The canonization of Louis IX. by Boniface VIII. transformed our principal civic festival-August 26th, into a feast of the church. It is still brilliantly celebrated by the town of Cette-a creation of Louis XIV.-as the day of its patron saint. Under the old régime in Paris, the Carmelites always went in procession to the Tuileries on that day, inviting the mayor and aldermen, and in fact, the whole town to join them. They presented each of these gentlemen with a bunch of flowers and a piece of "pain bénit," and in crossing from the Place Maubert to the Tuileries, they

always halted at the Rue de la Feerronerie on the spot where Henry IV. fell, to sing a De profundis. St. Louis' day was the only one when the Tuileries gardens were open to illdressed folk; and it was the same with the Luxembourg, the King's Garden (Jardin des Plantes), and the Place Royale. A certain royal censor named Jèze, who wrote a book about Paris in

to Versailles before this time, and it was only his gardens, not his house, which were thrown open.

Montesquieu is rather sarcastic on the subject of holidays. He regards them strictly from their legal obligatory and utilitarian point of view. "When a religion," he says, "ordains the cessation of labor, it is the needs of mankind that ought to be considered rather than the greatness of the being to be honored." He then quotes Xenophon, who complains of the excessive number of holidays at Athens as a great hindrance to business. Xenophon, however, was an aristocrat, besides being an economist. "Protestant and Catholic countries," Montesquieu goes on to say, "are so situated that more labor has to be performed in the former than in the latter. Hence the suppression of holidays becomes a matter of convenience in Protestant lands." This is true no doubt, but there are other and stronger reasons for the difference. A man cannot renounce an established religion without changing the whole tenor of his life. If he can be made to do this, he is converted. If he clings to his old habits, nothing is accomplished. The Lutherans, however, retained a good many more holidays than the Calvinists, and even instituted some new ones, as the "Feast of the Reformation." Climate also is an important

factor.

As to the suspension of industry. Montesquieu was not the only moralist who complained of the abuse of the custom. Witness the plaint of the cobbler in one of the most charming fables of La Fontaine:

Le mal est que toujours

(Et sans cela les gains seraient assez honnêtes)

1760, felt it his duty to apologize for this Le mal est que, dans l'an, s'entremêlent

des jours

Qu'il faut chômer. On nous ruine en

fêtes.

act of condescension on the king's part, which was not approved by "nice people." "It is but just," he wrote, "that the house of the common father of all Frenchmen, should be open on his birthday to the entire populace." The "com- De quelque nouvean saint charge toujours mon father" had, however, withdrawn

L'une fait tort à l'autre, et Monsieur le Curé

son prône.

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