children dressed in white, with bouquets of flowers and white favours,
and a procession is formed (with a priest at the head) and marshalled
through the principal streets and back again to where the altar to 'Our
Lady' stands, now decorated with a profusion of flowers and an effigy of
the Virgin.

All this time the bells are ringing at intervals, and omnibuses loaded
with holiday people rattle past with shouting and cracking of whips. The
old fashion and the new become mingled and confused, old white caps and
Parisian bonnets, old ceremonies and modern ways; the Norman peasant and
the English school-girl walk side by side in the crowd, whilst the
western door of the Church of St. Pierre, to which they are tending,
bears in flaming characters the name of a vendor of '_modes
parisiennes_' Men, women, and children, in gay and new attire, fill the
streets and quite outnumber those of the peasant class; the black coat
and hat predominate on fête days; a play-bill is thrust into our hands
announcing the performance of an opera in the evening, and we are
requested frequently to partake of coffee, syrop, and bonbons as we make
our way through the Rue St. Pierre and across the crowded square.

Stay here for a moment and witness a little episode--another accidental
collision between the old world and the new.

[Illustration]

An undergraduate, just arrived from England on the 'grand tour,' gets
into a wrangle with an old woman in the market-place; an old woman of
nearly eighty years, with a cap as old and ideas as primitive as her
dress, but with a sense of humour and natural combativeness that enables
her to hold her own in lively sallies and smart repartees against her