esided in
the act.

"When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to come in. The poor
beast was heavy loaded--his legs seemed to tremble under him--he hung rather
backward, and, as I pulled at his halter, it broke in my hand. He looked
up pensive in my face: 'Don't thrash me with it: but if you will you may.'
'If I do,' said I, 'I'll be d----.' "

A critic who refuses to see in this charming description wit, humour,
pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real sentiment, must be hard indeed
to move and to please. A page or two farther we come to a description not
less beautiful--a landscape and figures, deliciously painted by one who had
the keenest enjoyment and the most tremulous sensibility:--

"'Twas in the road between Nismes and Lunel, where is the best Muscatto
wine in all France: the sun was set, they had done their work; the nymphs
had tied up their hair afresh, and the swains were preparing for a
carousal. My mule made a dead point. ''Tis the pipe and tambourine,' said
I--'I never will argue a point with one of your family as long as I live;'
so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch and
t'other into that, 'I'll take a dance,' said I, 'so stay you here.'

"A sunburnt daughter of labour rose up from the group to meet me as I
advanced towards them; her hair, which was of a dark chestnut approaching
to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress.

" 'We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out both her hands, as if to
offer them. 'And a cavalier you shall have,' said I, taking hold of both
of them. 'We could not have done without you,' said she, letting go one
hand, with self-taught politeness, and leading me up with the other.

"A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, and to which he
had added a tambourine of his own accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as
he sat upon the bank. 'Tie me up this tress instantly,' said Nannette,
putting a piece of string into my hand. It taught me to forget I was a
stranger. The whole knot fell down--we had been seven years acquainted. The
youth struck the note upon the tambourine, his pipe followed, and off we
bounded.

"The sister of the youth--who had stolen her voice from Heaven--sang
alternately with her brother. 'Twas a Gascoigne roundelay. '_Viva la joia,
fidon la tristessa!_'--the nymphs joined in unison, and their swains an
octave below them.

"_Viva la joia_ was in Nannette's lips, _viva la joia_ in her eyes.