, 1872-01-01

| Il did, most cordially; but not half SO
much as I despised myself the next
moment. As to its being like lovers
quarrel. it want. 1t was more bitter;
so much more love than lovers ever give
had to be taken back. Besides it had
no dignity, and a lovers quarrel always
has. A lovers quarrel always springs
from more serious cause, and has an
air of romantic tragedy. This has no
grace of the kind. 1t was apoor shabby
little squabble."
go, don't call it SO, Basil! should
like you to respect even quarrel OF
ours more than that. It was tragical
enough with me, for didn't see how
it could ever be made up. I knew
couldn't make the advances. l don't
| think it is quite feminine to be the first
20 forgive, is it?"
"I'm sure can't say. Perhaps it
would be rather unladylike.'
"Wen, you see. dearest, what I am
trying to get at is this: whether we shall
love each other the more or the less for
it. think we shall get on all the better
for while, on account of it. But l
should have said it was totally out OF
character. It's something you might
have expected from very young brlda'
couple: but after all we've been through,
it seems too improbable.
every well," said Basil, who having
made all the concessions, could no.
enjoy the quarrel as she did, simply be-
cause it was theirs; 'let's behave as II
it had never been. :"
90 no, we can't. To me, it's as If we
had Just won each other.'
In fact it gave wonderful zest and
freshness to the ride around the noun
tain, and shed a benefcent glow upon
the rest of their journey, The sun
came out through the thin clonds, and
lighted up the vast plain that swept away
north and east, with the purple heights
against the eastern sky. The royal
mountain lifted its graceful mass beside
them, and hid the city wholly from
sight. Pleasant-villages in the shade of
beautiful elms, dotted the plain in every
direction. and at intervals crept up to the
side of the road along which they drove.
But these had heen corrupted by
more ambitious architecture since Basil
saw them last, and were no longer
purely French in appearance. Then,
nearly every house was tannery in a
modest way, and POLITICALLY published
The fact by the display of a Sleeps tail
over the front door. Now, if the tan
neries still existed, the poetry of the
sleeps tail had vanished from the
portal. But our friends We're consoled
by meeting numbers of the peasant
iolting home from market in the painted
carts, which are doubtless ofthe pattern
of the carts first built there two hundred
years. ago. They were grateful 1of the
immortal old woman, crooked and
brown and bowed with the labor OF the
fields, who abounded in these vehicles
when a huge girl jumped from the tail
of her cart, and showed the thick clumsy
ankles of true peasant maid, she could
only sigh out Of their Unspeakable sat
isfaction.
Gardens embowered and perfumed the
low cottages, through the open doors of
which they could see the exquisite neat
ness of the life within. One of the
doors opened into school-house,
where they beheld with rapture the
schoolmistress, book in hand, and
with a quaint cap on her gray head, and
encircled by her flock Of little boys and
girls W. D. Howells, in November
Atlantic.
/ --S-<FF~S----