acts was to buy five thousand pounds worth of jewellery in London, to present to the ladies of the English court and the sporting world. A most important element of the fashionable world was propitiated by the magnificent cup to be annually run for at Ascot. But the main object of that visit, as subsequently disclosed by Count Nesselrode, was to prepare us for the dissolution of Turkey, and buy the consent of England by the bribe of Egypt and Cyprus. Various political considerations connected themselves with any proposals of marriage to the young Queen of Spain. We know that these were discussed during the visit of the queen to the Château d'Eu, and during the visit of Louis Philippe to Windsor Castle. And although the diplomatic conferences would be managed by the statesmen of the different governments, we may well believe that in her conversations with her brother of France this interesting subject occupied a prominent position. For the Queen of Spain was in a position which only lately had been that of the beloved Queen of Englanda queen regnant, with various competitors for that sovereign's hand. Among these competitors was a kinsman of her husband's, namely, Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg. On the other hand, Louis Philippe had four gallant sons, either of whom might marry the Queen of Spain, or, barring that, the infanta, who ere long might be queen regnant. At fourteen, this child queen was sacrificed to the astute diplomacy of France, which, on this occasion, so completely overreached the diplomacy of England. This is the first grand thing,' said M. Guizot, that we have effected completely single-handed in Europe since 1830.'

Not a word of the moral guilt of the violation of pledges given to our queen. The effect has not been quite so grand as he then expected. The cordial alliance between England and France was then completely dissolved, and the loss of this alliance perhaps contributed towards the fall of Louis Philippe. As for the poor young Queen of Spain, all that married unhappiness ensued which might have been expected from such a beginning. Before a year was over a coldness arose between the king and queen. Her Majesty had a personal favourite, General Serrano- a fact which is matter of history, and was never disguised-a matter which caused no little trouble at least and no little scandal to the ambassadors. At the different embassies there was constant discussion on the subject of a divorce. The government of the country was to the last degree unstable. 'Nothing,' wrote the French minister at Madrid, 'is so easy as for the English embassy to overturn the Moderato ministry.

.. Nothing would be easier than for the French legation to overturn the Progresista ministry, if it chose to set about it.' Under these circumstances it must be a matter of congratulation that things have turned out so much better than could, à priori, be expected.

At this point we must take leave, at least for the present, of our subject and of Lord Geoffrey Plantagenet. If he escapes the lethal air of the mountain, and the equally deadly atmosphere of Madrid in his year, a noble career lies before him. I feel pretty certain he will be a Secretary of Legation; I trust he will one day become his Excellency the Ambassador of England.

OR people who want to find

FORM

many old English fashions, it seems to have become necessary that they should seek them abroad. We read of old English gardens, and of sunny orchards where gnarled old trees are moss-grown; we see in our old pictures, fragments of ruinous balconies, lovely in their decay amidst their exuberant foliage. The wood fires on the dogs, which give out such scent of warmth when their white smouldering ashes are roused by a fresh log; the alcoves that rooms are full of-for us found only in story-booksand then, again, all the manners that speak of a quiet life, perhaps somewhat of the vegetative, but so charming just to drop into, out of the whirl of town life, and out of our civilization. When people go abroad, it is mostly with some hobby, to which they turn such attention as is not required by sight-seeing-that terrible bane of travellers, which gives them no peace or truce! I suspect, indeed, that I was of the number of those who go abroad rather in search of the land where the hands of the clock are always afternoon.

I did not want to go sight-seeing, but the last six months had fairly tired me with their whirl; and as it was clear, that, in England, the world would not stand still to rest, it was most refreshing to be for awhile in Belgium, feeling as if the life-tide had gone back half a hundred years, wandering in the quaint streets over the moss-grown stones, gazing at the sky, against which the pinnacles cut short, listening to the carillons that rung from the old church towers, watching the crowds who poured all morning into the great churches-so great and so divided with their many chapels that even large numbers of people were perfectly lost in their space-noticing the friendliness and equality of the ranks, where the nobleman and the workman, being nobleman and workman, kept quite in their own places, and were accordingly friendly, and where the dear old

houses were wide and broad and roomy, and were built with a view to living in, and not with the sole view to fashion. There was a personality about those old Belgian houses. It seems to me that in made things, all the value of each lies in the mind-stamp on it. Each single piece of creation is perfect because divinely stamped; and even in man's poor work, surely the same rule shows itself! And thus it is I think that houses and rooms that grow moulded to family wants, furniture that betrays the one pervading mind ruling it-even the dress that bears token of its wearer's taste the dress that somehow shows us her general line of viewing things-each of these seems to me to have a human interest, quite separate and distinct from the walls and ceilings, the satin and chintz, and the sweeping or flapping that pervade these subjects.

The absence, too, of high farming,' was provokingly pleasant. I know! Don't tell me about 'two grains of wheat for one.' It is intensely interesting, but we will leave it to Mr. Gladstone, if (as I conclude he must be) he is the proper person. To people whose hobby is hedges, think what a place is Belgium! After the farms in England with fences kept so neatly, and with such square-clipped tops, and with the banks clamped up beyond all hope of a violet, think of the acute delight of seeing a good old-fashioned, plenty-of-room-sort of hedge, good eight or ten feet through, and growing all tall and branching, and then a great space of grass between it and the field. It's all very well to say that that grass might have been wheat, and that the hedge was too high and spoilt the place with its shade. Give me the blessing of a place where there's plenty of room. It made one comfortable-one felt that the world was larger. What a thing room is really that is the secret, no doubt, of the comfort of roomy halls and of broad, spacious staircases. I don't know why else it is that one knows one had so much

rather live in an old house with plenty of hall and staircase, even with small rooms comparatively, than live in a modern villa with six feet of 'entrance,' and about four of staircase, even although the rooms are 'spacious, with plate-glass windows.' Then, too, I am doubtful about my love for plate-glass. It makes a room not a room. It has to me the look of being too much out of doors.

But talking of windows reminds one of what one has seen out of windows; and one of my Belgian pleasures was the way people used their animals. One day, last autumn, in Brussels our windows on the Place Royale commanded the following scene: a cart is in the Place, drawn by a great big dog, a big boy in attendance; a heavy shower comes on; dog lies down, and looks up inquiringly at boy; boy instantly produces a large umbrella, opens the said umbrella, and holds it over the dog! And now, upon my word, I saw that with my own eyes, and have been in fits of laughter whenever I have thought of it since.

Every one knows Belgium; and I suppose one must not talk of those quaint old towers of Bruges, with its winding streets, that the balls from the guns could not sweep, and of the grand 'lines' of Antwerp, and of the Spanish houses with the ships carved on them, at Ghent-of all these things that bring so forcibly before one the wonderful great blessing our island country has, when she has never known the dread of invaders' footsteps. Nothing ever made me realize a 'battle-field' till I went to Belgium, and well might that general meeting plain be full of such reminders.

But perhaps it is well to turn now to more peaceful and suitable subjects; and, first of all, to give minds a little more matter to work on in the way of contrivances, which really so many people seem to see and yet pass by. And, first of all, I must mention the humblest possible thing, because it struck me in Belgium, and afterwards we must go on to things more of France and of Paris.

I mean the crocks. We go and

buy dear majolica, and beautiful it is. But to any one who happens to go this year through Belgium, Malines and Bruges especially, I say just look at the piles of really beautiful colours, green and blue, brown and red, that old women sell, for a few sous, in half the streets you pass through. The colours are simply beautiful; and though the forms are clumsy, they are not on that account ineffective-ferns and foliage plants, and leaves of large begonias would really look beautiful growing in crocks like these. For halls and passages, and fireplaces in summer, and for the conservatory, such things as these would be charming. It is always nice to collect odds and ends where one goes. It keeps up my theory of identifying one's surroundings with one's life in some way. And abroad there is a way of doing things-a lightness and simplicity which we really want in England, where we are far too much used to follow some beaten track--now shutting out half the light by our heavy curtains and by the wonderful draperies that used to accompany small windows; then getting terrible papers that render our walls a nightmare; then taking to floorcloths and carpets that are awful, throwing ourselves and our furniture into extraordinary relief, somewhat as if we were walking upon the ceiling-simply because the upholsterer will not acknowledge the principle of toning down, from the light above to the darkest part, the ground.

We should gain much freshness, much cleanness, if the polished floors of French houses took more general root in England. The idea of our rough boards is distressing to proper French minds; and I do wonder very much, that the various modes of staining and polishing wood are not more made use of in our smaller villas and cottages, where oak flooring, I suppose, is not to be hoped for; the staircases and passages would thus have a finished look.

Another thing that struck me, was the very simple and lightlooking arrangement of blinds and curtains in many rooms in Belgium.

A single fall of muslin, hemmed neatly and edged with lace would fit exactly each of the windows, opening with the window. The light was thus scarcely obscured, the screen was complete, and we were saved all the bother with blinds in opening windows, and the ugliness of a rod and a drawn-in blind cutting the window in two and preventing one's seeing out of it. I saw, too, such nice-looking curtains, merely of thick twilled muslin edged with a little narrow ball-like edging or fringe, and these were so arranged as to cross at the top of each window perhaps three inches or so, giving an air of finish and neatness that no one would have supposed so trifling a thing could give. The chintz, too, abroad is used well, in good houses. We either make loose pinafores for our chairs and sofas, or else we make tight covers that probably look unfinished for want of a completeness and exact adaptation of pattern to the thing that is thus covered.

I think it the greatest blunder when, in chairs that are worked or chintz-covered, one sees the bunches of flowers cut off through the middle. It says at once, this chintz, or this embroidery, was never meant for this chair. Abroad, with their large patterns, they can often manage better to give one pattern to each; and if not, they finish off with a frill of chintz, which gives a smartness and finish, and has a neat look about it which is altogether French. This air of being intended for the thing it is used for, is, I think, what gives the air of peculiar good style to the furniture covered with patterns in which a wreath runs all round; even where some plain stuff of one colour is used, and corded and finished, it has so much more elegance than a gaudy unfinished covering. I never think anything prettier, for the finest drawing-room, than selfcoloured silk or satin, made up with well-chosen bands. And in the house, some time ago, of one of our best painters, I remember the furniture was all of self-coloured crimson, relieved by a Turkish pattern of blue, in a band that trimmed each chair or sofa-cushion.

Why do not people bring back again the pretty old work of long ago, when flowers and leaves and birds were cut out of gay chintz, and arranged in artistic groups upon grey or gold-coloured, or pale seagreen linen, being stitched on neatly, each thing for an object.

No work seems to give more room for arrangement and taste than this. It is most inexpensiveand a country drawing-room, or a boudoir thus furnished, would be really in good and unhackneyed style; it would have a use and an object; it would have some stamp of the worker, and would retain its value with the associations that grow about cared-for rooms.

I remember so well, a very unartistic set of curtains done thus, that were a hundred years ago supposed to be in the drawing-room, and that had come in my time to hang in other windows where we used, as children, to marvel at the patience that had done all the patchwork. They were extremely ugly; but nothing in the world could have made them look vulgar. There was finish, and care, and goodness about them, enough to make them respected as long as two threads held together; and the bag, which is now the last relic that I possess of them, is, and will always be, eminently respectable.

Now think, as I say, of this furniture, on pale gold-coloured linenor on sea-green is better-roses and ferns, and flowers in long wreaths down the windows; slenderer garlands weaving themselves round each chair and sofa cushion, and, here and there, chair-backs adorned with a well-arranged spray. I suppose very dainty people might even do this on white.

Abroad, these things are more done still, because there is more time. People are not half so busy in French and Belgian towns as we are, who are for ever rushing from place to place. There is a wonderfully charming feeling that one touches on now and then, of living in the times of Adam Bede again.

There is life, decidedly; but it is leisurely life. The shops are provokingly torpid, and strike one as