; and when I marked his tender
thoughtfulness for his wife, his unwonted appreciation of her lovely
character, and especially his indulgence of the caprices of little
Aimee, who was almost always his companion, I was ready to believe in
his entire conversion.

But can the Ethiopian change his skin? One morning Madame Le Fort's
little dressmaker came rushing in in a very excited way: "Mon Dieu! I am
so glad to get here! Quel homme terrible!"

"What is the matter?" asked madame.

"I have just been trying on Madame Regnault's new costume, the gray
faille and velvet, you know, that she selected when she came with you.
It is a charming costume, and she looked sweetly in it. The general came
in before I got through. 'Do you call that a costume?' he asked in a
passion. 'It makes her look like a fright. Take it away: never let me
see it again.' Poor little madame hurried me to get it off. 'Take it
away! out of the house with it!' cried he as if he were commanding a
regiment of dragoons.--'I can't take it away,' said I. 'It was made to
order--madame selected it herself--and you cannot expect me to take it
back.' I was frightened to death, but I couldn't lose the money, you
know. The window was open: he seized the unlucky costume, and giving it
a little whirl, sent it flying out of the window over the balustrade.
Madame was going to send her maid for it, but no; the wind caught it,
and away it went out of the court, and where it lighted or who picked it
up is more than I know, or madame either. It may be a fine thing to be a
general's wife, but I'd rather be a dressmaker."

And the little dressmaker laughed till she cried to think of madame's
handsome costume sailing out of the window over the Avenue Haussmann,
and lighting like a balloon on the head of some lucky or luckless
passer-by.

MARY E. BLAIR.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION IN FRANCE.

For a long period, France, with her ancient university and her venerable
scholastic institutions--which after the Renaissance drew to themselves
the flower of the youth of Europe--may be said to have led the way as
regards general education. It has only been in modern times that the
progress made by the Anglo-Saxon and German nations has placed, at all
events, primary instruction in France somewhat in the rear of other
countries. As for her system of secondary and superior education, it has
even within the last few years elicited