little bird is fast asleep," he thought kindly. "It has put its head under its wing after all its troubles, and it is fast asleep." And he felt hospitably glad to have given this poor hunted bird so safe a nest.

Catherine, whose slumbers had been much disturbed by dreams of the black oaken press, the warming-pan, and her stolen umbrella, rose with dawn, and was rather surprised to find her master below with a loaf and a plateful of freshly gathered cherries on the table before him. "Are you hungry, Maitre Salomon," she exclaimed. Why you never eat at this hour!"

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miller felt he ought not to have given her another thought; but he could not help himself, and even though he felt sure he should not find her at Susanne's, he yet went round at once to his neighbour's cottage. Susanne's amazement at his questions was too genuine to be feigned. She had seen nothing of the girl since she left her cottage the evening before.

"I dare say the tinker has got her, after all," said Susanne, shaking her head; "I always said he would. He is her father, you know."

.

How calmly she spoke of it. Maitre Salomon felt too angry to do more than "I suppose I can eat my own cherries turn his back upon her and walk away. when I like," he answered shortly; and to He did not go back to his own house. He put an end to her questions he walked out felt sadly sure that he should be as unsucinto the garden. He felt annoyed not to cessful in Fontaine as he had been with have been beforehand with Catherine; he Susanne; yet a tormenting power which was sure Mariette was awake and hungry, he could not resist actually made him walk and he wished her to eat some of his cher- off at once to that object of his aversion ries, the best in Manneville; also he had the windmill, and seek the fugitive there. been thinking all night over something "I only want to know that she is safe, that which he wished to say to her this morning. is all," he said to himself, as if he needed For one so calm, not to say phlegmatic, Maitre Salomon felt in a rare fever, and there was a great throb of mingled uneasiness and joy at his heart, when he saw Catherine leave the house, and heard her scream to him from the garden gate that she was going to look for her umbrella, and would not be long away.

"She is always long, God bless her poor soul," thought Maitre Salomon, going back to the house. His first act was to bolt the kitchen door, so as not to be surprised, then he stole upstairs, and knocking softly at the door of his mother's room, he said aloud: "Mariette, Catherine is gone, and thou must have something to eat. Shall I bring thee the bread and cherries, and leave them at the door, or wilt thou come down to the kitchen? It is nice and cool, and the door is bolted." Mariette returned

no answer.

Was she still asleep? These young things sleep both sound and late. The miller raised his voice and spoke againin vain. With a vague suspicion of the truth, he tried the door, it yielded to his bard. He looked in from the threshold; Mariette was not there. The bed had not been slept in, the window was open, the cage was empty, and the bird was flown. She had fled in the night through the door or down the window, by the help of the old vine; no matter when or how, one thing was certain, she was gone- gone without so much as bidding him good-bye, or saying "I thank you."

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that justification of his egregious piece of folly. "She is a child, and she slept, or was to sleep, in my mother's room, and so I ought to know what has become of her."

Maitre Salomon found the miller, a sturdy young man white with flour, standing at his own door with a fat baby in his arms. "I came to see about Mariette," said Maitre Salomon abruptly; for the sight of the windmill and of his rival had roused his old animosity to all its early vigour. "I think she ought not to have gone away without bidding me good-bye; but that is neither here nor there; provided she is safe, I am content; let her be civil or not."

"Marie," called the miller, 66 come out. Here is a miller from Manneville, who has something to say about Mariette." A fresh young woman came out on this summons, and Maitre Salomon telling them both briefly all he knew, again asked about Mariette.

“Then the tinker has got her, after all," said the young miller coolly. Marie, take the baby, it is getting sleepy." Then turning to Maitre Salomon: "You know nothing more about her, I suppose?"

"Did I not come to see about her?" said the miller, curtly.

"Ah! to be sure." And, having handed the baby to his wife, the owner of the windmill looked hard at the owner of the watermill. Maitre Salomon felt exasperated.

"Will you do nothing? Will you not She was an ungrateful child, and the 'interfere?" he asked, glaring at his enemy.

"I am that baby's father, and the tinker | did, but he lay ill for many weeks, and is Mariette's father," stolidly answered when he recovered Catherine took the Jacques. disease, and lay in her grave before ten days were over. She had been years with her young cousin and master, and though she was deaf and wilful, not to say tiresome, he missed her much, and grieved for her sincerely.

"You cannot mean it," she replied, looking up at him with evident doubt in her blue eyes. "It is too good to be true."

But it was not too good to be true, after all, and Mariette, half laughing, half crying for joy, could not help saying, "Oh, I am so glad- so glad! for I could not bear him, only I was so frightened of the tinker. And he squints, you know," she added, confidentially; "but I did not like to say so."

one.

Mariette heard him, but thought she | to imply that there is something odd and was dreaming. Could the miller, the singular in American customs, whereas handsome, rich, young miller of Manneville the fact is merely that these customs differ be in earnest or was he dreaming, that he from our own, which, in their turn, appear talked so. "Well!" said Maitre Salomon, to other civilized nations quite as odd who stood before her looking down in her and unreasonable. Pindar has said, "Cusface. tom is king over all;" and Herodotus, by way of illustrating the remark, which was perhaps less of a commonplace then than now, tells a story of a certain tribe of Indians who, when they heard from a Greek traveller that in his country people used to burn the bodies of their deceased relatives, cried out with horror- their own practice being to kill and eat an aged parent. In a manner slightly less marked we do much the same as these Indians; we unconsciously assume our notions of propriety to be the natural ones, and require some defence or apology to be offered for any deviations from them. This is perhaps most conspicuously the case in matters of social etiquette, for its rules grow into us and become by constant observance so much parts of ourselves that we forget they are only an expression of floating opinion which we might disregard if we pleased. Hence, in attempting to describe a system of manners and usages unlike that which prevails in happy England, one must begin by requesting readers, and in particular by entreating ladies not to be startled at hearing of these free and lightsome ways, and not to condemn them or those who practise them till they have reflected well on the whole matter. A French lady is shocked by the license of English manners; she will stand beside her daughter in a quadrille, lead her away the moment it is over, and lift up her hands when she sees a couple wander off towards the conservatory. A Turkish lady will be even more severe in her criticisms on the indelicacy of all the Franks than Paris is upon London and London upon New York.

The miller was a man of few words, and his courting, for many reasons, was a brief Marie was very much affronted that her cousin should be so cavalierly jilted; but Jacques, who had never liked the match, chuckled at its being broken off with such evideut enjoyment that he won the heart of Maitre Salomon, who actually ceased to think the windmill the ugliest he had ever seen.

Mariette made the best of miller's wives. She sang like a lark, was as busy as a bee, and thought nothing and no one could compare with the mill and the miller of Manneville. Every one liked her; even the neighbours, who had recommended Lunie and little Catherine, said she was not amiss. She had but one fault; she was too fond of looking out of that window with the vine-leaves growing so thick and green around it, and whence you can see the stepping-stones and the tall beech tree, and the little shining river flowing on in golden sunlight or green shade.

The tinker died suddenly in prison, and had no time to say anything about Mariette's relations. "Never mind," says Maitre Salomon, "I am sure they are all dead."

Till hup Pacoter

Now, as to America, everybody in England knows that social intercourse is much more free there than it is in Europe, but

read the d let the hardly anybody knows in what precisely

The Cornhill Magazine. ON SOME PECULIARITIES OF SOCIETY IN

AMERICA.

WHY this paper, which is intended to give some account of the social relations of young men and maidens in the United States, should have been by the Editor of the Cornhill or this present writer entitled "On the Social Peculiarities of America," I really do not know. The phrase seems

this freedom consists, or what its results are to the young people and the whole community. Nor is it easy, even in the States themselves, to make out how matters stand. Society differs greatly in town and in country, in New England, in the middle States, in the South, in the West. Even in the same city different sets, all of them claiming to be "genteel," will observe very different rules, some being more and some less influenced by Eu

ropean example. Then one can't always [other cities, when half-a-dozen young men trust what one hears; for while an in- invite as many girls to drive with them up formant of advanced ideas tends to exag- through Central Park to a favourite gerate the freedom permitted, others are dining-place near the north end of Manmorbidly anxious not to be supposed to hattan Island, dine or sup there, and come fall below the English standard of good-back in the evening, they usually secure breeding, and will soften down or deny one married lady who does propriety, or, outright what is most distinctively Trans- as they express it, matronizes the party. atlantic. The statements of this paper One, however, is enough, and she is not are therefore given with some diffidence, necessarily a relative. But this is rather and with a perfect knowledge that many an exceptional concession to European of them might plausibly be controverted.ideas; over almost the whole country, and They are, as one says in a preface, the re- especially in the West, no question would sult of an honest and painstaking investi- be raised as to the right of youths and gation, conducted by unprejudiced inquir- maidens to drive about alone together in ers whose sources of information were wagon, buggy, buck-board, or any other both ample and various. But I am sure contrivance upon wheels. that if they should meet the eyes of cer- At evening parties, and in particular at tain ladies belonging to certain sets in New dances, which are frequented more assiduYork and Washington, they will be scout-ously and enthusiastically by the Ameried with real or affected indignation. can youth than by our own, the chaperon, "Who can this Englishman have lived with if not quite unknown, is comparatively when he was in our country? Very infe- rare and insignificant. At Washington, rior people, we guess. We don't know such people." Nevertheless the risk, which after all is not a terrible one, of incurring the censure of these ladies, must be faced.

where social usages are a good deal influenced by the presence of so many diplomatists from Europe, I believe that she flourishes; and the same may be the case in particular sets in one or two of the The first point in which the difference other Atlantic cities. But in most parts from England strikes a stranger is the of the Union her presence would be liberty allowed to girls and young men of thought quite unnecessary. Now and going about together. They walk out in then, of course, it will happen that a the country or in the streets of a town not mother or elder sister accompanies the merely in groups, but a couple, all alone, girl, but far more frequently she goes by unaccompanied by aunts or brothers, with- herself to the ball, looks after herself when out asking any permission, and without she is there, and comes home with a friend attracting any notice. A girl may do this or a servant, sometimes with a young man with some particular friend as often as she who escorts her through the streets. Such pleases. I knew a young gentleman of Prov- an escort, one is told, need not be a relidence, R. I., and an extremely nice fellow ative or intimate friend; he may even be he was, who for a year or more strolled a mere acquaintance who has been introout for two hours one afternoon in every duced to her at the party. Then there is week with one young lady whose company a convenient practice by which a lady may pleased him, and nobody censured either provide herself with an escort for the of them. Both belonged to the best soci- whole evening, which two bright New ety. Driving is more to the taste of all Yorkers, who described it to the writer, Americans, young and old, men and wo-strongly recommended for adoption here. men, than walking is, and to take a lady The lady asks a young man whom she out for a drive behind his fast-trotting horse knows fairly well to accompany her to is one of the chief delights of the American youth, who is always happier in the society of women than in that of his own sex. Here and there a parent (of European proclivities) may be found who, without venturing openly to disapprove the practice, tries to avoid falling in with it; and when the thing is done on a large scale, it is thought, in some sets, to be a trifle more decorous to have a matron of the party. In New York, for instance, where French or English notions of etiquette are more powerful than in most

such or such a ball, to which he probably has not been invited. He conveys her there accordingly, is presented as her guest to the lady of the house, leaves her to her own devices for the evening, and takes her home again in the small hours. Such an escort is called "a walking stick,” and the only drawback, said my informants, to employing him is his tendency to hang about his owner at the dance, where perhaps he knows scarcely any one, and to bother her by asking for dances and introductions. He has not even the last