Roulleau was in an agony of terror lest any one should hear her imprudent words.

"Hush-h-h, I beseech you," he said tremulously, "I am not so clever as you, Zénobie, I do not affirm it. Only be quiet and tell me what you would have me do."

"Do!" she cried in her high-pitched voice. And then, with one of those sudden strange checks by which she controlled her passion, she changed back to her contemptuous manner. "You can

never be anything but what you are, but you may be useful in your own way. Do ? Go and creep, Ignace."

F

OF all French towns, perhaps Charville is the most thoroughly under the domination of female influence. I do not know how the power has grown up to its present height, or whether it is of any great antiquity, but it is so hard to conceive anything modern in connection with the place, that one supposes it to have existed in remote ages. Women's rights in France are of a more muscular and physical character than in England; women go out into the fields, dig, reap, and plough: it is a severe training, from which they come out brown, weather-beaten, and aged, before their time. There is plenty of such work in the great monotonous corn-fields which encircle Charville all the year round; but inside the town, a more important, and, in their eyes, a more honourable occupation, is entrusted to women.

The

measuring and selling the grain in the corn-market is carried on by a corporation of their number. They do their work very quickly and efficiently. Their code of laws is of long standing, and seldom meets with a hitch. The owners leave all in their hands; in fact, their trustworthiness is so proverbial, that as soon might the character of a judge be assailed, as the honesty of one of this corporate body. Saturdays are the days when you may see the long line of carts coming in from the farms laden with little golden grain: the Charville sleepiness seems all at once to rouse itself into action; there is activity, energy, sometimes even a little spice of hurry, so that those that enter the town at the lower suburb find it no easy matter to get up the narrow steep streets; the carts jolt and creak, the horses labour, while all the time there is an unceasing chorus of the sharp "Heep, heep!"

Inside the market, as has been said, matters move with all imaginable rapidity and gravity. The women receive the grain from the sellers, weigh it, and the sale goes on so briskly that all is over before the end of an hour. Outside, in the Place, are a crowd of carts, people idling, old women standing about in their stuff gowns and snowy caps; the country-people meet their relations; there is a din

of good-humoured chatter about the current price of corn, the relative value of samples, the health of the bishop, the ambition of Madame the Préfet's wife, the chance of gaining a few additional sousall kinds of matters, great and small, but very rarely is there any more serious disturbance. Monsieur Deshouliéres was therefore not a little surprised one morning as he passed through the Place to find himself the centre of a hubbub. Quite a crowd had gathered together at the principal entrance to the market-men and women with grave excited faces, while the usual kindly chatter had become a torrent of shrill voices. People looked out of their windows full of interest; the horses, standing unheeded in the carts, tossed their great manes, and stamped and shook themselves to get rid of the tormenting flies. The time when business usually concluded was fast, and it was evident that something still hindered it, something unusual, and out of the

common.

"What is the matter?" asked M. Deshouliéres, elbowing his way through a throng of women.

So many voices were lifted to answer the question that he raised his low hat, and said, with an appealing gesture, "One at a time, if you please, mesdames, if I am to understand."

"Such an affair has never before happened in our town."

"It is a scandal!"

"One will be told next that one sells short measure one's self!"

"Could monsieur conceive the audacity of that unhappy boy! A creature with scarcely a rag to his back!"

"Madame Mathurine will assuredly apply to Monsieur Lemaire for justice."

Then they all began again. The doctor could not comprehend it. He saw, at last, however, that there were two parties, each enthusiastic for their own side, and from what he could gather out of the angry waves of talk, he suspected the town and country people were at variance. Old Nannon was passionately declaiming in the centre, alternately scolding her opponents and hugging a white-faced, bullet-headed boy in a blouse who seemed the object of attack. A painter would have been charmed with the scene, there was so much colour and animation about it. The houses looked as if each had its history and its characteristics: there were wonderful Gothic arches with sombre depths of shade, and above them, perhaps, a scarlet or purple flower flaming out of a window; there was a crowd, with its patches of indigo, olive green, and rich russets, all in har