deeper, fuller tones, reminded him painfully of Maud.

Yes. Had he not known Lady Bearwarden so well, he thought it I would have been quite possible for him to have mistaken this beautiful young lady for that faithless peeress. The likeness was extraordinary! ridiculous! Not that he felt the least inclined to laugh-the features were absolutely the same, and a certain backward gesture of the head, a certain trick of the mouth and chin were identical with the manner of Lady Bearwarden, in those merry days that seemed so long ago now, when she had been Maud Bruce. Only Miss Algernon's face had a softness, a kindly trustful expression, he never remembered on the other; and her large pleading eyes seemed as if they could neither kindle with anger nor harden to freezing glances of

scorn.

As for the Fairy Queen, he looked from the picture to its original, and felt constrained to admit that, wondrously beautiful as he had thought

its likeness on canvas, the face before him was infinitely superior to the painter's fairest and most cherished work.

Dick went away of course almost immediately, though sorely against his will. Contrary to her wont, Miss Algernon, who was rather a mimic, and full of fun, neither imitated the gestures nor ridiculed the bearing of this chance visitor. She had not observed him much,' she said, when taxed by Simon with this unusual forbearance. This was false. But she might know him again, perhaps, if they met.' This, I imagine, was true!

He

And Dick, wending his way back to his hotel, buried in thought, passed, without recognizing it, the spot where he met Lady Bearwarden one short hour ago. was pondering, no doubt, on the face he had just seen-on its truth, its purity, its fresh innocent mirth, its dazzling beauty, more perhaps than on its extraordinary likeness to hers who had brought him the one great misfortune of his life.

THERE are 'locks and locks'-to

Tadopt the favourite formula of

the day-and it is not of the patents of Chubb, Bramah, or Hobbs, or of tumbler, safety, detector, or other mechanical fastenings, that we are about to speak. It is of the 'hyacinthine locks' alluded to by Milton, and more especially of those borrowed tresses which women nowa-days covet to that degree as to make one think that, like Samson, all their power lay in their hair.

Does any one believe that all that has been written by moralists and censors and medical men to boot, during the past two or three years, against the practice of wearing false hair-that all the horrible stories which have been told about chignons being made of hair cut from corpses-or the terrible revelations which have been made respecting 'gregarines' and other parasites, or even the recent threat of the Bishop of New Jersey not to lay his episcopal hands on the heads of young ladies who present themselves before him to be confirmed in borrowed tresses-has caused one false chignon, repentir, cachefolie, tête-et-point, or Alexandria curl the less to be worn?

The

trade in hair is as flourishing as ever, and the choicer samples still command exceptional prices. One of the largest Paris dealers still finds customers for his blonde ardent chignon at 1,500 francs, although silk counterfeits are common enough in all the passementerie shops for as little as ninety centimes.

Every one knows by this time that the bulk of the false natural hair worn in the British Isles is imported from France, for with us the very poorest never sell their hair, excepting the canny Scots, who supply the Paris market with the best red and flaxen hair. France, by this time, must send us about 60,000l. annually, still what is this among the five million women given to plaiting and tireing their hairpositively less than threepence per head-a mere bagatelle for such astounding results. It is Brittany

that sends the largest supplies of human hair to the Paris market. 'Since the Roman conquest,' writes Chateaubriand, the Gallic women have always sold their blond locks to deck brows less adorned. My Breton compatriots still resign themselves to be clipped on certain fair days, when they exchange the natural covering of their heads for an India handkerchief.'

6

Happening to alight on the above passage in a volume of Chateaubriand's Memoirs, which I found lying about the hotel at Combourg, where I chanced to be on the eve of the 4th of September last-the day of the famous fair called the Angevine, held, as Chateaubriand tells us, in the meadow of the lake,' though the road to Rennes now separates lake and meadow - I strolled in the direction of the château, of which and of the gloomy life of its inmates Chateaubriand has left us such a vivid description, to see the preparations for the morrow's fête. In the meadow referred to, and along the high road adjoining, I came upon a sort of camp. Carts and waggons half unloaded, horses tethered to stakes fixed in the ground, canvas tents and little booths in course of erection; with hammers constantly rapping, children gamboling and squalling, and caldrons, suspended over crackling wood fires, steaming and smoking. Among the objects that were being unpacked and piled up pell-mell on all sides were an abundance of common household utensils, knives, pottery, wooden shoes, felt hats, drapery goods, printed cottons, religious trinkets, and cheap jewellery, but I looked in vain for the foulards and the corahs for which the Breton girls bartered alike their fair and raven locks with equal readiness.

Next day I visited the fair when the crowd was at its height, and explored all the stalls in the meadow and by the roadside in vain search after those shearers of young girls' tresses, respecting whom I felt some curiosity since reading the foregoing

passage in Chateaubriand's Memoirs. Arrived at the outskirts of the fair, at the wings of the spectacle in fact, I noticed under a wide-spreading walnut-tree, and partially hidden behind a large crockery stall, as though the spot had been selected as affording a certain degree of privacy, a hooded cart half filled with packages, its shafts resting on the ground, and a lean horse, fastened to one of the spokes of the wheel, grazing beside it. The owner, a little square-built muscular man, about forty years of age, seemingly half peasant, half horse-dealer, was sitting on one of the shafts close to a parcel of printed cotton goods. One detected something of the rogue in the twinkle of his insolent-looking eye as, unfastening a small packet, he brought forth one by one half-a-dozen showylooking handkerchiefs, and expatiated on the particular beauties of each as he produced it to an old peasant woman, who held a barefooted young 'girl of twelve by the hand, whose 'catiole' had been removed, the better to display the profusion of beautiful black hair which fell in cascades to her waist. As I approached the group I noticed that the man suddenly became silent, but I heard the woman say

'One handkerchief is not enough for such a quantity of hair.' The girl seemed to have no voice in the matter, so she contented herself with regarding with covetous eyes the brilliant treasures displayed before her.

'My good soul,' replied the dealer, in a coaxing tone, 'I really can't give more or I should lose by it, for I have already got more black hair than I want. It is only light hair that fetches any price now-a-days; still, as I promised you a handkerchief you shall have one. I'll not cry off the bargain. You know where to find me when you have made up your mind.'

The old woman made no reply, but proceeded to assist the child to do up her hair, rolling it chignon fashion inside her loose 'catiole.' The pair then walked away, but returned a moment afterwards to accept the dealer's terms, who,

without more ado, set to work. Seated upon a three-legged stool, he gripped as it were his victim, her hair all hanging down, between his knees. In his hand was a pair of large open shears, which he pressed close to the girl's head. Monsieur,' cried she, 'you are hurting me, pray don't cut it all off; leave me one lock to fasten my comb to.'

The dealer, however, was deaf to this sort of entreaty, and with a few snips of his large scissors cropped the child's head almost close. He then rolled up the bunches of hair, and after securing them with a knot put them into a bag, while the girl, raising her hands to her head, felt instinctively for one moment for her missing tresses, then hastened to conceal with her catiole the ravages the dealer's shears had made. This done, the old woman selected the gaudiest of the half-dozen handkerchiefs and hurried off her granddaughter into the crowd.

Certain French writers of romance pretend that, in the majority of instances, the young girls of Brittany and Auvergne who sell their hair, only do so under pressure of some dire distress. Nothing is further from the truth. In Brittany, selling the hair, is, as Chateaubriand tells us, as old as the Roman invasion of Gaul, and the custom may now be said to run in the blood. The style of coiffure common there certainly conceals the absence of the customary tresses, but even if it did not, no one would think any the worse of the poor shorn lamb. At Mont-lucon, again, girls who are betrothed sell their hair with the consent of their future spouses, to provide themselves with the wedding trousseau. And even well-to-do farmers' wives, in a spirit of prudence, will at times part with their hair for a serviceable dress. Breton hair being so highly prized for its fineness, it is not on fête days alone that dealers display their tempting wares and drive hard bargains with the hesitating fair. All the year round, pedlars, with packs of showy cotton prints on their backs, tramp from village to

village, trying to tempt the hundreds of girls they meet on the highway, tending pigs and cows, to part with their flaxen or raven locks for glossylooking red and yellow cotton handkerchiefs worth about a franc each. In the towns, it is the hairdressers who insinuate to all the young girls that they give as much as twenty francs a pound for long back hair this is the market price throughout the north of Brittany; but as female labour is better paid in these parts, commanding about a franc a-day without board, they do only a moderate amount of business, and this chiefly with girls who have to lose their hair for sanitary reasons, and when they are forced to sacrifice it, think they may as well get from ten to fifteen francs for it from the hairdresser. The average value of a head of hair sur pied, that is to say, not as it stands, but rather as it grows, is ten francs. The finest crop, reaching far below the waist, hardly ever weighs a pound, or commands the coveted golden napoléon. Years ago, before the era of railways, the hair merchant used to barter, not merely handkerchiefs, but caps, ribbons, little shawls, scarfs, and plated earrings for a head of hair, but now-a-days, when hair is more in demand, and young girls or their guardians have come to know more of its value, he must be prepared to pay money in the towns if he hopes to reap a handsome crop.

In Auvergne, which is quite out of the ordinary tourist's line of route, and is-as a couple of maiden ladies, whom we met last year travelling in search of the economical, in preference to the picturesque, confidentially assured us-the only part of France not overrun by English, and, consequently, the only part where living is really cheapin Auvergne the itinerant dealer in human hair does business in a perfectly public fashion. He makes a point of arriving in the village on market day or during the annual fête, and might be easily mistaken for the travelling dentist or quack doctor who extracts teeth or extols the healing quality of his drugs to the gaping peasants assembled in

the market-place. At Ambert, St. Anthème, Arlant, Olliargues, and Riom, their cabriolets and booths, surmounted by little tricolor flags, are huddled together in the midst of the egg and butter stalls; and grouped around them will be peasant girls with baskets of fruit and vegetables, accompanied by their parents or their husbands, and all ready to sacrifice their locks to the highest bidder. At Issingeaux, on market days, the sight is exceedingly picturesque. The hair-merchant takes his stand on a low platform or wine cask turned on end in front of a booth formed of canvas, and a few planks, and with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, invites the women, in a loud voice, to step up and show their hair. Around him are a crowd of men and women in sabots from the surrounding country, come to sell either a cow, a pig, or a couple of fowls, the women dressed in a short serge petticoat and cotton apron, with a cap or a coloured handkerchief bound round their head in winter, and in summer wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat; the men in short apple-green cloth jackets and large felt hats, similar to those worn by the privileged porters at the Paris markets.

One by one the girls will mount platform or wine cask, and throwing aside their caps, will loosen their tresses and

Shower their rippling ringlets to the knee.'

The hair-dealer makes a rigid examination, followed by an offer, and as soon as a bargain is struck, the girl steps inside the booth, and in five minutes the dealer's assistant will have cropped her close, when off she will run amidst the laughter and jeers of the crowd, which, however, does not prevent the remainder of the girls in the village from following her example.

It sometimes happens, however, that the young men of the place, who look upon the hair merchant with no kindly eye, will commence assailing him before he has succeeded in packing up his traps and decamping. He then has to trust to his horse to carry him

beyond the reach of the enraged swains. Mud, stones, rotten eggs, and every kind of filth at hand fall in showers upon the hood of his shabby cabriolet; but being tolerably accustomed to this sort of thing, he takes care to be provided with an excellent horse, which soon places him beyond the reach of the mob, and next day he will sustain the principal part in much the same scene in some adjoining village.

In Normandy most of the girls have their hair cut very short with the exception of the chignon, over which they coquettishly arrange their high caps, which, like the Brittany coiffure, so completely covers the head that they appear to have lost or rather sold nothing at all.

When the hair-merchant has finished his tournée in the provinces he takes his merchandise to Paris or some other large town, where he sells it, at prices varying from twenty to a hundred francs the pound, to dealers who, after preparing it, make it up into chignons, curls, bandeaux, nattes, &c. On visiting one of the largest of these establishments, we found the four walls of the sale-room lined round with shelves, reaching from the floor to the ceiling, on which were piled up chignons upon chignons of all qualities and all shades of colour, from raven black to the most delicate blond, done up in packets of six, the smallest number sold by the house, which does no retail trade. Half a dozen assistants were executing orders which customers gave in person, or which had been received that morning by post from the travellers of the firm. In an adjoining warehouse the raw material was lying in heaps upon the floor beside scores of young women, who were sorting and weighing out the chignons of the future, allowing SO many grammes for one sort and so many for another. The place, in fact, was redolent of hair. There was hair in all the drawers, hair in cardboard boxes, hair hanging from the ceiling and clinging to the walls, hair upon the counters, upon the chairs, and in the very inkstand; there was even hair in the air itself, moving

about as it were in clouds, which when you agitated them disagreeably caressed you.

Most of the hair, we learned, reaches the establishment in bulk, in large sacks, each holding about a couple of hundred-weight. It is first of all subjected to a thorough washing in boiling water to remove all the grease and other impurities, after which it is placed in a bath of potash and then thoroughly dried. The various tresses are now sorted roughly according to their length and shade, then what is called in technical language the eveinage takes place. This consists in separating the principal locks of the same tress that do not resemble each other closely in shade. Then comes the recarrage, or equalising of the upper ends of each tress, after which a second and more careful sorting ensues, and the hair is arranged in bundles, weighing from ten to twelve pounds each, to undergo a new series of operations.

First of all the hair is taken in small handfuls by the workmen, who powder it thoroughly with flour; it then receives a vigorous combing upon iron carders, after which a second carder comes to the assistance of the first, and holds the hair tightly while it is pulled out in lengths, of which the longest are separated first. The final operation to which it is subjected is styled the delentage, and consists simply in again combing it upon carders of extreme fineness. False tresses are now formed by mixing together, in certain proportions, hair of the same tint and slightly varying in length. To arrange a grand chignon the hair-worker will at times employ the spoils derived from the heads of no less than thirty women.

Our hair-dealer was careful to assure us that all the stories told about hair cut from dead bodies being worked up into chignons, &c., were devoid of truth. Hair thus obtained,' he said, 'is too brittle to be curled or twisted into proper form; and as for "gregarines," these may exist,' he observed, 'in Russian chignons made from hair procured from the dirty Mord wine and Burlake peasant women, but I never