Leonard smiled. "That vivid fancy of
yours, my dear, takes strange flights
sometimes," he said quietly.

"Fancy!" repeated Rosamond to herself.

How can it be fancy when I see the face?
how can it be fancy when I feel——" She
stopped, shuddered again, and, returning
hastily to the table, placed the picture on it,
face downwards. As she did so, the morsel
of folded paper which she had removed from
the back of the frame caught her eye.

"There may be some account of
the picture in this," she said, and stretched out
her hand to it.

It was getting on towards noon. The heat
weighed heavier on the air, and the stillness
of all things was more intense than ever, as
she took up the paper from the table, and
opened it.

MANNERS MADE TO ORDER

THERE have been men who held that
manners grow, and cannot be put on
and off like a coat. The mandarin devotes
a considerable portion of his time to
the calculation of the steps he ought to
take in advance of every visitor who may
honour him with a call; and, it is certain
that the French Emperor's chamberlain
only recently devoted his attention to the
compilation of a description of the behaviour
to be maintained by all who approach
the Tuileries. Having lost the elaborate
forms that, in the olden time, sprang from
the tone of thought and morals then
prevalent, men have endeavoured to fit them to
modern society. Napoleon did not pay more
attention to his celebrated code than he
devoted to the etiquette of his palace, as
his bulky book on the subject, bound in
red and gold, plainly proves. Regnier
Desmaries complained of the want of
gallantry in the time of Louis the Fourteenth,
and looked back mournfully a hundred years;
just as, a century after his time, men turned
to the great founder of Versailles as the first
authority on manners—as the perfect gentleman.
And now, seeing the dapper Bourse
men in the broad avenue of the Champs
Elysées, their hats cocked aside and
useless glasses in their eyes, the old gentlemen
of the Faubourg St. Germain, with their
awfully deep stocks and their broad shoes,
sigh touchingly for the days that are no
more! There are no more children! is the
exclamation in every Frenchman's mouth.
Chivalry is dead since men now presume to
remain covered before ladies, on the Boulevards.
We discussed this point lately with
a very ancient marquise.

This marquise was an extraordinary woman.
She was living alone with her daughter in a
two-pair back; she made her own bed; she
cooked her own dinner; she swept her own
little salon. We have seen her, in the court-
yard, drawing a bucketful of water. Still,
discuss with her the temper of the times, and
you would see her blood at once. As she
washed the teacups or swept the hearth, she
would tell you that Monsieur Un Tel was not
gentilhomme; and that she had a suspicion
that Monsieur Blanc was in business. Her
daughter gave music lessons, at prices which
would have proved to the English seamstress
that she was not alone a miserable worker in
the world; yet this young lady contrived to
buy paper stamped with her father's coronet,
and to express her scorn of tradesmen on
every occasion. The contrast between the
pretentious and the realities of the marquise
and mademoiselle her daughter was ludicrous
at first; but, by degrees, we fell in with their
notions, and learned at all events to respect
the dignity with which they bore the most
terrible misfortunes. More, we saw that the
marquise, who drew water in the morning,
side by side with servants, in the evening
claimed and obtained among her friends the
respect usually accorded to her social rank.
There was no greater stickler, among the old
noblesse, than this same old lady, for the
nicest details of behaviour. And it was with
her that we ventured audaciously, one evening,
to discuss the last question.

it was our opinion that a gentleman, on
meeting a lady of his acquaintance on the
Boulevards, some cold winter's day, having
removed his hat when he accosted her, might
replace it upon his head while he exchanged
a few words.

"Horror!" exclaimed the marquise. "But
there are no young men now. When I was a
girl, a gentleman would have remained
uncovered all the time he was addressing me,
and if an east wind had been blowing its
bitterest gusts! And now, monsieur, I
maintain that every man is mauvais ton who
does not hold his hat in his hand all the time
he is addressing a lady."

The marquise belongs to a section of
society that insists upon grafting dead
branches of the past upon the vital limbs
of the present. Seeing that manners have
changed; and believing that all which has
gone before, is better than all which
actually exists, men have endeavoured, from
time to time, to lay down laws of politeness,
and to hold that they are irrevocable.
M. de Meilhaurat's celebrated Manuel du
Scavoir Vivre is a notable instance of these
endeavours to provide manners ready made
to the people. Has he not the exact notes
that should be written to sweethearts,
mothers-in-law, fathers-in-ditto, to hosts and
to guests? Are not his directions suggestive
of the common occurrence of all the faults in
behaviour he seeks to destroy? May we not
fairly judge of what a person is likely to do,
by the advice offered to him by his friend?

And so regarded, what shall we say of the
manners as made to order by Miss Leslie,
for observance in the United States? Shall
we regard, them as a satire on manners in