2

"Where in the world have you been?" asked Madame de Staël.

"Madame," he replied with the greatest calm, "I have been taking my customary walk."

"You must have fallen into the water," she said, "for your feet are positively soaked."

"Only the dew, madame, I assure you. I never once left the broad alley by the mill."

"That explains the state you are in," exclaimed Corinne; "is it possible you never perceived that the water had been turned into that very alley, and that you have been walking in it up to your ankles for the last two hours?"

with their managers, being generally apt to regard them as their natural enemies. Few, however, have carried their animosity farther than Arnal. During one of his innumerable lawsuits with the director of the Vaudeville, he deemed it expedient to propitiate his judge by a preliminary visit, and lost no time in soliciting an audience of the president of the tribunal.

"Monsieur," was the unexpected reply of the porter, "he died last night."

"Oh," said Arnal, too deeply intent on his own affairs to realize the other's meaning, "that does not signify in the least, I have only one word to say to him!"

Perhaps, after all, the individual most notoriously subject to this infirmity was the country manager, Thornton, of whom more instances of chronic absence of mind have been related than would fill a volume. The following, which we believe to be authentic, has never to our knowledge appeared in print. Thornton was staying with his wife at Brighton, whether for business or pleasure is not recorded; and, according to his usual custom, started one morning for a stroll on the beach before breakfast. It was nearly high tide, and in the course of his walk the bright

Munster, Bishop of Copenhagen, was noted for his absence of mind, an infirmity which increased as he advanced in years. He was accustomed, whenever his duties summoned him from home, to hang a placard on his door, announcing, for the benefit of any chance visitor, that he would return at a certain hour. One day, being obliged to attend to some important business in the town, he affixed the usual notice, and, his errand accomplished, came home, and ascended the stairs leading to his modest apartment. On arriving op-ness of a pebble just washed by the sea posite his door, he glanced mechanically at the placard, and, entirely unconscious of his own identity, concluded that he was too early, and waited outside until the clock struck, when he suddenly recollected who and where he was, and let himself in.

This reminds one of General de Laborde, an ex-aide-de-camp of Louis Philippe, who, after making his bow at a ministerial soirée, was so absorbed by his own reflections on leaving, that, while still half-way through a long suite of rooms communicating with each other, he fancied that he had already reached the porter's lodge, and, to the astonishment of all present and his own confusion, exclaimed in a sonorous voice, "Cordon, s'il vous plait!"

Châteaubriand relates in his memoirs that his wife, who had organized for charitable purposes a sale of chocolate manufactured under her own personal superintendence, was so entirely devoted to her philanthropic project that she thought of nothing else; and on more than one occasion so far forgot herself as, instead of subscribing her letters "Vicomtesse de Châteaubriand," to sign them Vicomtesse "de Chocolat."

French actors are rarely on good terms

struck his eye, and he took it up in order to examine it more closely. Presently it occurred to him that it was time to return to the Old Ship, where the couple lodged; and, looking at his watch, he discovered it was almost nine o'clock, the hour appointed for the morning meal. Putting the pebble carefully in his pocket, he mechanically tossed his watch into the water, and reached home just as the shrimps and fried bacon were placed on the table. Their departure having been previously fixed for that day, Mrs. Thornton, after doing ample justice to the dainties provided, and not wishing to be late for the coach, turned to her husband, and enquired what time it was; whereupon the manager, extracting the pebble from his pocket, began to stroke his nose (his invariable habit when in great perplexity), and staring at the stone, fell to wondering how it came there.

"What are you looking at, Mr. Thornton?" asked his astonished wife. "And pray, where is your watch?"

66

My dear," he replied with a bewildered air, "I haven't the least idea, unless" here a fresh inspection of the pebble appeared to suggest some faint remembrance of the substitution "unless it is at the | bottom of the sea!"

From The Saturday Review. WHITSUNTIDE AT HOME AND ABROAD.

uous; but it would be a mistake to suppose that more æsthetic things are neg EVEN in these days of conquests by the lected. Between the early dinner and the Blue Ribbon crusaders, there are only late supper these tables are deserted, save too many honest Britons who confound by casual strangers from a distance droprecreation with dissipation, or something ping in for chance refreshment or by a like it; and who think they have done no few belated veterans snoring peacefully sort of justice to so solemn an occasion as behind their pipes. And the seeming a holiday if they do not carry home a solitude and silence of the surrounding headache for the morrow. Our country woods are absolutely deceptive. The Gerpeople might learn sundry useful lessons mans are by no means a noisy people; in that respect from foreigners, and espe- and you may suspect nothing of the many cially from the Germans. We cannot hon- straggling parties till you almost stumble estly assert that the Germans are abste- upon them. But there are sure to be cermious or even moderate in the use of tain favorite resorts, either consecrated by either beer or tobacco, or even of solid some romantic mediæval legend or recomfood, for the matter of that; but as the mended by natural charms. And at these, beer, at all events, is sound and light, they which are of course enlivened by the permay indulge in it liberally without danger ennial beer-taps and coffee-kettles, social of excess. The Germans, at least, are groups are assembled in an amicable insincere admirers of scenery, though till of terchange of civilities. On the way to late years they were very little addicted them you pass respectable heads of to travel. All the more on that account houses, in flowing black frock-coats, with do they love to make the most of their im- bloated umbrellas, dragging up the steep mediate neighborhoods at the seasons woodland paths, laboriously towing their when long custom authorizes them to better halves along, who hang an embarleave their business. And where can full- rassing weight on their arms. And in blown spring be more thoroughly enjoy- Germany there always seems to be a suable than in the romantic Rhineland, then perfluity of spinsters of most uncertain untroubled by tourists; in the spirit- age, in mushroom hats and scanty pettihaunted Harts, in the absurdly-named but coats, who might really have sat as the charming Saxon Switzerland, or in such originals of those caricatures of the Enforests as those of Thuringia or Baden?glish "meeses" which we wonder at in At Whitsuntide the cities and the towns the windows of the Rue de Rivoli. Elsepour their populations into the country. where, in some sylvan nook or in the seThe steamboats and the special tourist cluded depths of some rocky ravine, we trains are swamped in good-humored come upon family parties enveloped in mobs; from the biggest hotel down to the smoke-clouds raised by the men, while smallest Gasthaus, every corner is filled to the ladies are contentedly chatting and overflowing. The air in the immediate knitting. The young women are more precincts of these establishments is redo- closely looked after than with us, so, unlent of sausages, Sauerkrat, and tobacco; less in case of actual and imminent enand the feats performed with the knives gagement, detached couples are seldom to and forks of the competing customers are be surprised. But should you prolong astounding. But digestions generally ap- your walk, as you may probably be temptpear to be well up to their work, and dys-ed to do, you will come upon long-haired pepsia, at all events, does not vent itself in visible ill-temper. Even when actually eating and drinking the excursionists live as much as possible unter freien Himmel; for all the restaurants, like the idol-sanctuaries in ancient Palestine, stand in groves, and any number of small round tables are spread out in the open air. Perhaps that material side of the German holiday-making may be the most conspic

youths with their great green botanical or entomological cases, eagerly hunting after science in her most seductive resorts. And when all these worthy folks go home after their holiday, it can hardly have left any but pleasant memories behind; for although we might fancy they had oversmoked and over-eaten themselves had they been English, surely they ought to know their own constitutions best.

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