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their early days; they have forgotten what is now too far off to be
realised. They weep who stand upon the boundary line separating youth
from age; who at once look behind and beyond: look back with longing
upon the glow and romance which have not yet died out of the heart, and
forward into the future where romance can have no place, and nothing is
visible excepting what has been called the calmness and repose of old
age.

"There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast,
But the bloom of early youth is gone ere youth itself be past."

The reader will probably quote the remainder for himself; Byron never
wrote truer or sadder lines. And we all know of a great man in history
who, at eighty years old, turned to his friend and, pointing to a young
chimney-sweeper, exclaimed: "I would give my wealth, fame, coronet--all,
to be once more that boy's age, even if I must take his place!" One of
the saddest sentences, perhaps, that one of eighty could utter.

To-day every house was weeping. Even the women who kept the stalls in
the covered market-place dispensed their butter and poultry, their
fruit and flowers, with a melancholy air, and looked as if they had not
the courage to keep up the prices. Ladies and housekeepers wandered from
stall to stall followed by their maids, a few of whom wore picturesque
caps, conspicuous in their rarity: for even Breton stubbornness has
yielded very much, where, for once, it should have been firm as a rock,
and it is only in the remoter districts that costume is still general.
We were invited to many purchases as we looked around, and had we
yielded to all might have stocked Madame Hellard's larder to
overflowing: a very unnecessary attention, for the table is kept on the
most liberal principles.

It was really alarming to see the quantity that some of the Bretons
managed to appropriate in an incredibly short space of time at the table
d'hote. H.C., who was accustomed to the aesthetic table of his aunt, Lady
Maria, more than once had to retire to his room, and recover his
composure, and wonder whether his own appetite would ever return to him.
And once or twice when I unfeelingly drew attention to an opposite
neighbour and wondered what Lady Maria would say to it, he could only
reply by a dismal groan which caused the oppos