ure; they all enjoy the same luxuries
of life, they all have good cooks, they all have discovered the same
way of living. If you want to see how differently people live in
France, in England, in Germany, in Italy, in America, wherever you
like, live among the middle and lower classes. Once, in South Africa, I
spent a whole day in a Zulu kraal, living with the natives and like the
natives, and I found that day spent in a far more interesting manner
than if I had spent it among the hosts of the Faubourg Saint-Germain,
Mayfair, or Fifth Avenue.

France is the only country that I know where, outside of the
aristocracy and the wealthy classes, you can find people who live
daintily. The French labourer eats a more appetizing dinner than
English and German well-to-do shopkeepers eat and than is served in the
hotels of the small American towns. That French labourer would refuse
to swallow, and even to look at, that wretched meal which I have seen
English working-men eat at noon, when resting their backs against a
wall or fence on the road--bread and pickles, or a slice of something
looking very much like cat's-meat, and stale beer that had been stewing
for hours in the sun in a badly-corked can.

* * * * *

The French wife, immensely superior to her husband in intelligence,
in shrewdness, in _savoir vivre_ and _savoir faire_, thanks to her
common-sense, her knowledge of financial matters, her instinct for good
order and management, her artistic refinement, her keen power of
observation, her native adaptability, her talent for cookery, makes a
husband enjoying but a small income lead the life that a rich foreigner
might envy.

She may have two dresses and one hat only to her name, but, by constant
skilful changes, the little humbug will make you believe that she
possesses a well-furnished wardrobe. It is not the cowl that makes the
monk any more than it is the dress that makes the woman. A woman is
stylish or not, according to the manner she puts her clothes on, and
that is where the French woman is irresistible. To lift her dress
modestly, gracefully, and daintily as she crosses a muddy street, she
has not her equal in the world. She has a little bustling, fluttering
way about her that will always keep your interest in her alive. She is
always tidy and smart, her hair well dressed, her hands well gloved,
her stockings well drawn, and her dainty little feet well shod. When
she speaks