their first communion. When she was ten, she
might have earned ten sous a day by picking up
stones in the vineyards; but she destroyed more
vines than she picked up stones. The curé
advised La Beugleuse to send her to Avignon
to a convent, where the good sisters received
such undisciplined colts as she, and broke them
in with mingled kindness and severity; but
Valerie coolly announced her determination ol
setting fire to the convent and murdering one of
the sisters in consecration of the first night she
passed under a monastic roof. She was now
between thirteen and fourteen, and at about this
time Jean Baptiste Constant came to Marouille
and entered into possession of the Lilies of France.
La Beugleuse took service with him, and Valérie
accompanied her. The vaurien soon grew familiar
with the stable, and on most friendly terms
with the horses and mules, would ride them
bare-backed to water, would litter and rub them
down, and feed them, and, indeed, was in a
short time quite as useful as an ostler. Partly
from compassion, and partly from an idea that
the girl could be overcome by other means than
violence, Jean Baptiste persuaded the housekeeper
to abandon her formerly unvaried specific
of flogging. For a time the girl went on worse,
and was intolerably riotous and rebellious; but,
after a while, she came to show, towards Jean Baptiste
at least, a strange surly docility which seemed
to be in some degree due to affection, and to
some extent to fear. She came at his call, and
almost at his whistle, like a dog. She obeyed
all his orders without a murmur. A stern word
or a stern look from Jean Baptiste was sufficient
to render her meek and submissive whenever she
showed a disposition to defy her aunt. The
mayor, M. le Curé, all the villagers, marvelled at
the phenomenon. Valérie was wholly changed.
But a stranger phenomenon was soon to take
place. When the girl came to be sixteen she
grew with astounding rapidity exceedingly beautiful.
Like Peau d'âne in the fairy tale, she
seemed, all at once, to have changed from a
grubby little ragamuffin, a sordid beggar's brat,
into a lovely and elegant princess. A princess
in rags she might have remained, certainly; but
that the landlord of the Lilies of Prance brought
her back, after one of his visits to Avignon, enough
cotton print of Rouen manufacture for two work-
a-day frocks, and a piece of mingled silk and wool
for a Sunday dress. Valérie, who had hitherto
been mocked at and despised, as the lowest of
the low, was now envied. She went through
her long-deferred first communion with
unexceptionable decorum. She combed out her
tangled brown hair, and arranged it in sumptuous
plaits beneath a natty little lace cap. She
washed her face, and her big blue eyes shone out
from the cleared surface, like stars. A film
seemed to have been removed from her voice,
even as a cataract is removed by a skilful
operator from a diseased eye. The voice was
harsh and strident no longer, but full of deep
rich tones, and low whispers. When she was in
a passion now, she was sublime, not repulsive.
The angular movements of her limbs were replaced
by an indescribable suppleness and grace.
She began to dance without ever having learnt.
She began to sing without ever having been
taught. She was evidently one of those raw creatures
who "pick up" accomplishments, or are
gifted with them naturally. Her capacity had
flowered late, but the product was marvellous
in exuberant beauty.

Her curious obedience to the behests of Jean
Baptiste Constant endured during a transitory period.
When her beauty was definitively
manifest, the shackles, as well as the dirt
and the coarseness, and the clumsiness, fell
from her limbs. The slave became a tyrant.
She turned sharply round on the strong old
woman who used to flog her, and in a moment,
morally, trampled her aunt under her heel. La
Beugleuse was dazed and bewildered by this
radiant serpent, so suddenly emergent from a
scaly skin. She gave in at once, and became
Valérie's very humble and obedient servant.
Her master, Jean Baptiste, held out a little
longer, and once or twice essayed to scold the
girl; but she soon determined the relations that
were in future to exist between them. "There
is only one person who shall say in this house I
WILL, and that person is myself." Thus she said,
stamping her foot. The innkeeper bit his lips,
and, looking at her curiously from under his
drooping eyelids, said "I will" no more—so far
at least as she was concerned—at the Lilies of
France.

          AMATEUR TOUTING.

IT is a grave question whether the effect of all
touting is not rather to set you against the thing
for which your favourable consideration is solicited,
than to draw you towards it. When a
couple of shy provincial maidens plant
themselves in front of a bonnet-shop in Cranbourne-
street, and commence a discussion as to the
attainableness or unattainableness of this or that
head-dress, they are surely much more likely to
be driven away from the shop than attracted
into it by the touter, who suddenly appears
fom within the building, and entreats them to
enter. It is so again with the photographic
business. The undecided people who get in
front of a frame of photographic portraits in the
street, wanting to have a good look at them
before they determine whether this particular
establisliment is to be patronised or not—how are
these poor souls tormented by the nondescript
character who touts for the vampire within! If
this dreadful individual does not frighten away
these almost-customers by flourishing the horrid
little portraits, at one shilling each, before their
eyes, and otherwise boring and confusing them,
they must be made of tough material indeed.

Touting is a mistake, and a troublesome mistake.
The hotel and lodging-house touts, who
surround you when you arrive at a popular