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History adds that he kept a corner of his eye on Louison to see if she was looking. It is a true saying that, if there were no dames nor damsels in the world, men would be less courageous.

CATHERINE’S “AT HOME”

IT is five o’clock. Mademoiselle Catherine is “at home” to her dolls. It is her “day.” The dolls do not talk; the little Genie that gave them their smile did not vouchsafe the gift of speech. He refused it for the general good; if dolls could talk, we should hear nobody but them. Still there is no lack of conversation. Mademoiselle Catherine talks for her guests as well as for herself; she asks questions and gives the answers.

“How do you do?–Very well, thank you. I broke my arm yesterday morning going to buy cakes. But it’s quite well now.–Ah! so much the better.–And how is your little girl?–She has the whooping-cough.–Ah! what a pity! Does she cough much?–Oh! no, it ‘s a whooping-cough where there’s no cough. You know I had two more children last week.–Really? that makes four doesn’t it?–Four or five, I’ve forgotten which. When you have so many, you get confused.–What a pretty frock you have.–Oh! I ‘ve got far prettier ones still at home.–Do you go to the theatre?–Yes, every evening. I was at the Opera yesterday; but Polichinelle wasn’t playing, because the wolf had eaten him.–I go to dances every day, my dear.–It is so amusing.–Yes, I wear a blue gown and dance with the young men, Generals, Princes, Confectioners, all the most distinguished people.–You look as pretty as an angel to-day, my dear.–Oh! it’s the spring.–Yes, but what a pity it’s snowing.–I love the snow, because it’s white.–Oh! there’s black snow, you know.–Yes, but that’s the bad snow.” There’s fine conversation for you; Mademoiselle Catherine’s tongue goes nineteen to the dozen. Still I have one fault to find with her; she talks all the time to the same visitor, who is pretty and wears a fine frock.

There she is wrong. A good hostess is equally gracious to all her guests. She treats them all with affability, and if she shows any particular preference, it is to the more retiring and the less prosperous. We should flatter the unhappy; it is the only flattery allowable. But Catherine has discovered this for herself. She has guessed the secret of true politeness: a kind heart is everything. She pours out tea for the company, and forgets nobody. On the contrary, she presses the dolls that are poor and unhappy and shy to help themselves to invisible cakes and sandwiches made of dominoes.

Some day Catherine will hold a salon where the old French courtesy will live again.

LITTLE SEA-DOGS

THEY are sailor boys, regular little sea-dogs. Look at them; they have their caps pulled down over their ears so that the gale blowing in from the sea and bringing the spindrift with it may not deafen them with its dreadful howling. They wear heavy woollen clothes to keep out the cold and wet. Their patched pea-jacket and breeches have been their elders’ before them. Most of their garments have been contrived out of old things of their father’s. Their soul is likewise of the same stuff as their father’s; it is simple, brave, and long-suffering. At birth they inherited a single-hearted, noble temper. Who and what gave it them? After God and their parents, the Sea. The Sea teaches sailors courage by teaching them to face danger. It is a rough but kindly instructor.

That is why our little sailor-boys, though their hearts are childlike still, have the spirit of gallant veterans. Elbows on the parapet of the sea-wall, they gaze out into the offing. It is more than the blue line marking the faint division between sea and sky that they see. Their eyes care little for the soft, changing colours of the ocean or the vast, contorted masses of the clouds. What they see, as they look seawards, is something more moving than the hue of the waves or the shape of the clouds; it is a suggestion of human love. They are spying for the boats that sailed away for the fishing; presently they will loom again on the horizon, laden with shrimp to the gunwales, and bringing home uncles and big brothers and fathers. The little fleet will soon appear yonder betwixt the ocean and God’s sky with its white or brown sails. To-day the sky is unclouded, the sea calm; the flood tide floats the fishers gently to the shore. But the Ocean is a capricious old fellow, who takes all shapes and sings in many voices. To-day he laughs; to-morrow he will be growling in the night under his beard of foam. He shipwrecks the most handy boats, though they have been blessed by the Priest to the chanting of the Te Deum; he drowns the most skilful master mariners, and it is all his fault you see in the village, before the cottage doors where the nets hang to dry beside the fish-creels, so many women wearing black widow’s weeds.