ed once a year, on Monday in Holy Week, within the walls of
the Kremlin, and consecrated by the metropolitan in the cathedral of the
Annunciation on Holy Thursday. Then comes the concluding act, when the
priest cuts off a small portion of the child's hair in four different
places on the crown of the head, encloses it in a morsel of wax and throws
it into the font, as a sort of first-fruits of that which has been
consecrated.

S.E.

A DAY AT THE PARIS CONSERVATOIRE.

It was ten o'clock in the morning when we drove up to the door of the
world-famous institution, but, early as it was, an animated throng already
filled the wide marble-paved entrance-hall--former pupils in elegant
attire; girl aspirants for future honors, accompanied by the inevitable
mamma with the invariable little hand-bag; young men and old; celebrated
dramatists and well-known actors, visitors, critics, etc.--all passing to
and fro or engaged in conversation while awaiting the hour for taking their
seats. Passing through these, we ascend a narrow staircase that gives one
good hopes of a martyr's death should the theatre chance to catch fire, and
we instal ourselves in a narrow and by no means comfortable box in the
dress-circle. The theatre of the Conservatoire, though not very large, is
very elegantly and artistically decorated in the Pompeian style, the stage
being set with a single "box scene," as it is technically called, which is
never changed, as plays are never acted there. Here take place the
far-famed concerts du Conservatoire, for which tickets are as hard to
obtain as are invitations to the entertainments of a duchess, all the seats
being owned by private individuals. But what we are now here to witness is
the competition in dramatic declamation, tragic and comic. The jury occupy
a box in the centre of the dress-circle and opposite to the stage. This
terrifying tribunal is enough to try the nerves of the stoutest aspirant
for dramatic honors, comprising as it does among its members such powers in
the land as Legouve, Camilla-Doucet, Alexandre Dumas, the directors of the
Comedie Francaise and the Odeon, and the great actors Got and Delaunay. An
elderly gentleman comes forward on the stage and reads from a printed paper
the name of each competitor and those of his or her assistants, and that of
the play from which the scene that is to be represented is chosen. Each
pupil selects a scene, and the persons who in French technical parlance are