which the poor are accustomed to behave to the poorest and most helpless of their colony. But, after all, what can the Street do? It is true that three and ninepence is the minimum daily turn-over of the little smallware shop. It is the natural result of the inflation which took place before Christmas, when Samuel Johnson Street disclosed the existence of a singular famine in the matter of smallwares, and literally besieged the doors of the little smallware shop in search of boot-laces, buttons, tape, needles, pins, and thread. Samuel Johnson Street determined that Mrs. Wentworth should be in good spirits on Christmas Day. But this artificial expansion of trade could not be maintained. Hence the relapse which has followed, and which greatly occupies the more thoughtful spirits in Samuel Johnson Street.

Quite apart from trade prospects, there is another phase of the matter, spoken of only in whispers, but on which Samuel Johnson Street profoundly ponders across the tea-cups and the thick bread and butter. Two or three months ago, at a public meeting of the Street, privately held on a Thursday night in the butcher's shop (Thursday being selected as the day on which the stock would be exceptionally reduced before replenishing for Saturday's market), it was agreed that a doctor must be called in to the little smallware shop. Customers looking in in the afternoon had more than once found the lessee fast asleep over her sewing-machine-not a healthy sleep, such as she might have known ten years earlier, but in a condition of unwholesome stupor. When awakened, she explained, with a sad smile, that she often found herself going to sleep when she ought to have been working, and regretted that she lost so much time, which, when plain sewing was brisk, was worth at least three-halfpence an hour.

Dr. Bolas was accordingly instructed to call in in a friendly way, and, on pretence of stocking himself with shirt-buttons, to see what he thought of the general condition of the lessee and proprietor. The report of Dr. Bolas, made to the butcher's wife, and through her communicated to the Street, was short and emphatic. Mrs. Wentworth was dying of consumption. If prompt measures were taken, and she were removed to Ventnor or some other place where the sun shone and where soft winds blew, she might live for years. But of Samuel Johnson Street it must be said, though its heart is big, its roadway is narrow. Only for an hour a day, and that for & week or two in midsummer, is it found necessary to throw a newspaper over that trimmed cap in the glass shade, lest peradventure its glories might fade. As for the atmosphere, it is the best Brassington can afford; but bad is the best, especially for weak lungs.

Samuel Johnson Street received this report with great sadness. But in its usual practical way it forthwith convened a meeting in the butcher's shop, to see what could be done. It was suggested, that if 1001. or perhaps 200l. were raised, a small annuity could be purchased that would enable Mrs. Wentworth to go South; for, as Mr. Hamnock, the auctioneer, sagely put it, her life was one that would be knocked down cheap by any insurance agent that knew his business. The mere mention of such a sum, however, threw a damper over the meeting. Samuel Johnson Street was equal to making all sorts of sacrifices for this poor waif and stray. But you might as well ask it for half-an-hour's loan of the Koh-i-noor as for 2001.

It was not the sort of Street to give in without a struggle. In fact, it passed a resolution to adjourn, ostensibly in order that time might be given for considering ways and means,' as the butcher (who once spent a very dull and confused night in the strangers' gallery of the House of Commons) said. This was, however, merely the sort of device a desperate man plays off upon himself in order to avoid the necessity of acknowledging defeat. The meeting was adjourned, and stands adjourned till this day, for Samuel Johnson Street has even abandoned that poor pretence of considering ways and means. It begins to think that all it can do is to keep the little smallware shop open to the end, and this it will do at whatever expenditure upon tape, boot-laces, and caps for Sunday wear.

With a delicate considerateness which must be an instinct, for Samuel Johnson Street never had been educated in these matters, no one has ever alluded in Mrs. Wentworth's presence to that meeting in the butcher's shop, at which the plan for sending her to Ventnor was discussed. If it had prospered, the tidings would have been joyfully carried to her. Since it failed, what use in telling her, and putting into her head thoughts that cannot be realised? So the little smallware shop is still open, and every one makes-believe that everybody else is in the best of health, and is really overwhelmed with worldly prosperity. It is only when Samuel Johnson Street has bought its tape or its buttons, paid its pence and left the shop, it admits to itself that the end of this very vulgar story is fast hastening to its commonplace conclusion.

HENRY W. LUCY.

Montaigle and its Legend.

IT is difficult to believe that the silent, sleepy, grass - grown village of Bouvignes was once a considerable Walloon town, a powerful rival of its audacious neighbour, Dinant-sur-Meuse.

The two places lie nearly opposite one another, and they used to frown mutual defince across the broad, beautiful Meuse from their rival towers of Mont Orgueil and Crève Cœur, perched on the limestone crags above each town.

The compères of Dinant seem to have often got the worst of it in these encounters with their rivals; they were a brave, generous, but somewhat turbulent race; and when

once upon a time, hotly besieged by Philip the Good and his fierce son Charles the Rash, the townsmen of Bouvignes sent a herald to Dinant imploring their neighbours to be reasonable and to submit themselves to their sovereign, the Dinantais contemptuously hanged the messenger, and continued to insult the Duke of Burgundy, until he razed their city to the ground, and actually flung 800 of the contumacious townsmen into the Meuse.

The people of Bouvignes were cruel and revengeful too; for as the bodies floated past them down the Meuse, some still struggling for life, the Bouvignois stood on the bank and thrust the

poor creatures who tried to get on shore back into the water again.

The two towns had an intense rivalry in the manufacture of the brass and copper wares famous throughout Europe, till this fatal destruction of Dinant, by the name of Dinanteries.

But there must have been more vitality in Dinant than in Bouvignes, for the latter has dwindled into a mere village without special industries or manufactories since its destruction by the French in the time of

Henry II., while Dinant, though it too suffered at the same period, has risen from its ruins into a cheerful brisk little town, pleasant to look at and to live in

Bouvignes lies in quaint desolation beneath the ruined tower of Creve Coeur, but the remains of fortifications-a gateway, and especially a grand old gabled Spanish house on the grass-grown Place-tell that it has a history of its own, and make one willing to believe the assertion that it could once have mustered 15,000 fight

Bovegning-men when need

One day our ever

kind and thoughtful friend who had planned the visit to the Old Château in the Ardennes' said to us, I introduced you to VèveCelles; I will now show you the ruins of Montaigle.' So on a bright afternoon we started with Félix for driver and Jim' the Dachshund, now gravely seated beside his master in the roomy carriage.

Bouvignes looked charming as we drove through it on our way to Montaigle, with its unexpected alleys and turnings full of bright effects, peeps of the sparkling river and limestone crags on the opposite bank, and groups of picturesque people who seemed to

be standing or sitting just where figures were wanted to perfect the scene. Quaint and amusing pictures appeared at every turn. One woman had set her wash-tub on a heap of manure just within a doorway overshadowed by a vine, leaving her hard rubbing now and then to smack her little boy for some misconduct or other.

After leaving Bouvignes the valley widened and the road no longer kept so closely beside the Meuse, although it followed its course as far as Moulins; then it took an abrupt westerly turn into the valley of the Molignée, a valley bordered by limestone cliffs, with a bright little river which goes sparkling and singing along beside us, sometimes half hidden by grey willow-trees, that bend thirstily over it, as if trying to keep it for themselves. As the road turns. abruptly, the valley narrows and the limestone rocks project in huge grey shoulders through the birch-trees that clothe the sides.

Long shadows are stealing down the sides of the cliffs, and the little river shows golden through the willows as the light reaches it from the glow on the cliffs above. The road winds continually in and out as it follows the course of this lively little stream; it seems as if some huge man of middle-age were trying to walk in step with a blithe skipping maiden not yet in her teens. But all at once our attention is drawn from the river and the exquisite variety of scenery which its wayward course creates in the valley.

Our driver turns round on his seat and points with his whip, and as he considers himself the best coachman in Belgium, we feel bound to listen to Félix.

'See there, ladies '-he is pointing to an enormous rock on the right that towers high in air- V'là la Roche aux Corbeaux.' He cracked his whip loudly, and a black crowd of crows rose from the rock; there must have been hundreds of the noisy cawing creatures. They careered round and round for some minutes, then they returned to their favourite haunt. Félix looked as if he expected to be clapped for his conjuring feat, and drove on with a smile of triumph. The green meadow on the right through which the river danced along was purple here with autumn crocus. We got out and gathered some, and one of our companions climbed up into the wood on the right, and brought down treasures of the rich-hued glossy berries of Gueldres rose, with leaves of every exquisite tint dying daily in fresh beauty as the month drew to a close. But the crags grew barer on the right, the valley looked wilder, almost as if it were unvisited, and soon we saw down in a hollow on the left, beside the river, a half-ruined mill. The cliff rose abruptly behind it, thickly wooded, and a sudden turn in the road brought the rocks in front also; it seemed niched in its dark deserted corner, and a white mist that rose from the water