our way we passed the
St. Louis brook, where the laundresses were at work in two rows along
the stream, each kneeling at the edge in a broad open basket like a
boat, and bending over the low pool, alternately soaping and beating her
clothes with a flat wooden mallet. It was a picturesque sight--the long
rows of figures in baskets, the heads decked with bright-colored
handkerchiefs. But to a housewifely mind like my own the idea which most
forcibly presented itself was the small amount of water. Of a celebrated
trout fisherman it was once said that all he required was a little damp
spot, and forthwith he caught a trout; and the Mentone laundresses seem
to consider that only a little damp spot is needed for their daily
labors.

But in truth they cannot help themselves; the crying fault of Mentone is
the want of water. A spring is more precious than the land itself, and
is divided between different proprietors for stated periods of each day.
The poor little rills do a dozen tasks before they reach the laundresses
and the beach. The beautiful terrace vegetation which clothes the sides
of the mountains is supported by an elaborate and costly system of tanks
and watercourses which would dishearten an American proprietor at the
outset. The Mentone laundresses work for wages which a New World
laundress would scorn; but there is one marked difference between them
and between all the French and Italian working-people and those of
America, and that is that among these foreigners there seems to be not
one too poor to have his daily bottle of wine. We saw the necks of these
bottles peeping from the rough dinner-baskets of the laundresses, and
afterwards from those also of the quarry-men, vine-dressers,
olive-pickers, and lemon-gatherers. It was an inexpensive "wine of the
country"; still, it was wine.

The sun was now sinking into the water, and exquisite hues were stealing
over the soft sea. The picturesque Mediterranean boats with lateen-sails
were coming towards home, and one whose little sail was crimson made a
lovely picture on the water. At the sea-wall we met Miss Graves gloomily
taking a walk, and presently the phaeton with Margaret and Lloyd stopped
near us as we stood looking at the hues. Two ships in the distance
sailed first on blue water, then on rose, on lilac, on purple, violet,
and gold. Over the sea fell a pink flush, met on the horizon by salmon
in a broad band, then next above it amber, then violet edged with ro