ng young people, and democratic institutions had produced a kindred
type of manners in both countries. But I will not be very confident
about all this, for I might easily be mistaken. The Swiss make their
social distinctions as we do; and in Geneva and Lausanne I understood
that a more than American exclusivism prevailed in families that held
themselves to be peculiarly good, and believed themselves very old.

Our excursions into society at Villeneuve were confined to a single tea
at the pasteur's, where we went with mademoiselle one evening. He lived
in a certain Villa Garibaldi, which had belonged to an Italian refugee,
now long repatriated, and which stood at the foot of the nearest
mountain. To reach the front door we passed through the vineyard to the
back of the house, where a huge dog leaped the length of his chain at
us, and a maid let us in. The pasteur, in a coat of unclerical cut, and
his wife, in black silk, received us in the parlor, which was heated by
a handsome porcelain stove, and simply furnished, much like such a room
at home. Madame P----, who was musical, played a tempestuously
representative composition called "L'Orage" on the upright piano, and
joined from time to time in her husband's talk about Swiss affairs,
which I have already allowed the reader to profit by. They offered us
tea, wine, grapes, and cake, and we came away at eleven, lighted home
through the vineyards by Louis, the farm boy, with his lantern.

[Illustration: _The Market, Vevay--A Bargain before the Notary_]

Another day mademoiselle did us the pleasure to take us to her sister,
married, and living at Aigle--a clean, many-hotelled, prosperous town, a
few miles off, which had also the merit of a very fine old castle. We
found our friends in an apartment of a former convent, behind which
stretched a pretty lawn, with flowers and a fountain, and then vineyards
to the foot of the mountains and far up their sides. We entered the
court by a great stone-paved carriage-way, as in Italy, and we found the
drawing-room furnished with Italian simplicity, and abounding in
souvenirs of the hostess's long Florentine sojourn; but it was fortified
against the Swiss winter by the tall Swiss stove. The whole family
received us, including the young lady daughter, the niece, the
well-mannered boys and their father openly proud of them, and the
pleasant young English girl who was living in the family, according to a
common custom, to perfect her Fren