e largest, best, and most elegantly decorated,
and these young nymphs, usually so reserved and so easily frightened,
become, for this week, as bold and free as so many dragoons. They enter
the house, without being announced, open the drawers, visit the
secretaries, ransack the cupboards. Pirates, with taper fingers, they
put into their baskets and reticules all the valuables they can lay
their hands on. Objects of art they are sure to seize, more especially
if they are made of the precious metals. It is who shall adorn her
_reposoir_ with gold and bronze vases, with enamelled cups, pictures,
and rich crucifixes. Important meetings are held, in some secret spot,
to determine of what form the altar shall be; if the dominating colour
shall be blue, purple, or lilac. Then there is a consultation whether
the drapery, that is to cover this temporary chapel, shall be with or
without a fringe,--a discussion which becomes more entangled with
difficulties than those in the Parliamentary Club of the Rue des
Pyramides, as to the continued existence or demise of our poor
constitution. Silk, satin, and velvet ornament the interior of the
elegant edifice; the most delicate perfumes burn in each of its corners,
and, in order further to embellish the altar on which the Holy Eucharist
is to rest for a few minutes, there is a perfect coquetting with
chaplets, festoons of gauze, crystal lamps of various colours, and
transparencies through which the subdued rays of the sun shed their
softened light.

And, when everything is ready, when the mass has been said, when the
moment has arrived for the procession to move through the streets, the
bells ring a still merrier peal, the great folding-doors of the
principal entrance of the church are thrown open, and emerging from
thence one sees beneath the vaulted arch, first, the great silver
cross, then the banner of the blessed Virgin, carried by a beautiful
young girl, dressed in a robe of spotless white; after her come several
little children with flaxen heads, their hair parted and flowing on
their shoulders, carrying in their hands baskets ornamented with lace,
and full of poppies and corn-flowers; behind them are the children of
the choir, with their silver-chased incense burners; then two deacons,
one carrying on a silver plate the bloom of the vine, the other a head
of corn; then four men supporting a large shield, on which are twelve
loaves and a lamb, symbolical of the day; and lastly, unde