fete. This was the chief event of the year. The peasants came in from the
scattered villages and from the isolated farms lying in the midst of the
chestnut woods. All the women coifed themselves with their best
kerchiefs, the heads of most of the young girls being resplendent with
brilliant-coloured silk. This coiffure resembles that of the Bordelaise,
but it is not so small, nor is it folded so coquettishly. There was much
love-making--sometimes exquisitely comic by its rustic naivete--and
there was a good deal of dancing to the maddening music of two screaming
hurdy-gurdies.

At Beynac I made the acquaintance of a French-man who, after angling for
riches--a sport at which he lost much bait and caught nothing--turned all
his attention to the fish in the Dordogne. He resolved that he would run
no more risk by casting his bread upon the wider waters, but that he would
make the most of what remained to him by withdrawing to some riverside
nook, where his love of the unconventional, and his taste for a free life
in the open air, could expand, emancipated from all servitude to society,
including the necessity of keeping up what is called 'an appearance.'

What, to my mind, helps greatly to make France such a pleasant country to
live in is the large amount of social liberty that one enjoys there. Except
in great towns, and in those places which are thronged at certain seasons
by cosmopolitan crowds, people can live as simply as they please, and they
can wear anything, however cheap or even shabby, without risk of being
diminished on this account in the opinion of others. They are liked or
disliked, respected or despised, as their conduct and dealings become known
and judged.

The Otter--this nickname had been given to my new acquaintance by those who
were jealous of his fishing skill--when he was out in his boat never wore