ets (for the government receives a very neat sum from her children through lotteries); and boys with artificial tarantulas, whose fuzzy bodies and wriggling legs were sufficiently real to cause us to move on.

Then the flower peddlers--and flowers, flowers every where. The space to the left of the cathedral, a grassy stretch, was literally enamelled with them. A stack of dewy pansies for a medio (six cents,) and as many roses as you could grasp for a real (shilling). A great bank of violets checked our steps for a moment, and a bunch was instantly held towards us with tempting wistfulness. by a little lad, whose dark fringed eyes, careless flowing locks, and open throated shirt displaying a slender brown neck, encircled by a cord and scapular, completed a striking likeness to the well-known Neapolitan boy. A chance for a bargain was not lost upon him, and he followed us lisping musically, "Niña, niña, un tlaco! Amables señoritas, un tlaco por uno.

And here was an orchid vender. Orchids rare and beautiful, and so reasonable in price that it would make a collector wild with delight. Such gorgeousness of coloring, such singularity of shape, is rarely witnessed outside a choice collection. A disa grandiflora, with rich clusters, towered up in the centre, the stalk bent under the weight of blossoms. Darwin mentions this orchid especially for "its brilliant purple disc, seen afar by the insects by day, and its foxy odors, drawing them by night." Surrounding it were the common mottled lady slipper, the fringed orchid with shredded petals, and the musk orchid, whose tall spike and battered shield-shaped flowers of orange red gave out under the gently stirring breeze a breath that recalls the gentle swish of silk. Out of the mass a "butterfly" reached forward its trembling effloresence of sunset pink, the petals spread as if for airy flight from the gnarled old stump--a Daphne yielded back to earth again. And by the bearer's head a cynoches ventricosum, a vari

ety doubly interesting as it so beautifully illustrates orchid fertilization, hung down heavy with abundant white and gold-splotched blossoms. Nodding and swaying from their high perch they were a mass of rainbow hues sheets of flaming yellow, shaded to orange and back to dusky brown; rich reds and vivid carnations; sea greens and turquoise blues; opalescent whites reflecting every tint; and altogether a huge mass of delicately poised blossoms, emitting as they were borne along a sweet, sensuous fragrance, like distilled honey.

There is hardly a feast or fast day here with which the orchid is not associated-all seem to have their symbol in some species of this singular plant.

The Zocalo is the starting point of the street railways, which run from here to the different suburbs, and there is a look of aggressive importance in these modern Yankee vehicles sailing down the quaint old Spanish streets, so unused to innovation, which seems to presage the future; a future when Yankee pluck and enterprise shall stir the torpid Mexican liver, and give it a healthful business reaction.

Several cars cumbersomely draped in black were moving slowly down the linea first-class funeral procession. The poor usually carry their dead to the grave in a hired coffin, which is returned for other temporary occupants. And even this is too great a luxury for some, and when the shades of evening draw around to hide their piteous poverty, a little band of mourners will frequently steal by you, carrying on their heads a straight, stiff object, their struggling sobs telling only too plainly the destination of the little group.

Crossing the Zocalo again, above the general din we recognized the heavings of a broken-winded hand organ giving forth Norma, with here and there a gap in the air as if the supplicant had intermittent attacks of melody. A half-grown boy occasionally lifted his voice in song,

and was what Lamb would describe as "sentimentally disposed to harmony, but organically incapable of a tune. The third party in this remarkable trio was a dejected dog, in a red jacket and blindfolded, who, to the great delight of the youngsters, tripped a dance to the wail of the organ.

His adagio movements were accelerated by a long stick in the hands of the boy, who beat the pavement with regular time; the agonizing look of anxiety on the dog's face increasing, as the stick grew alarmingly close when a more allegro movement was desired.

We entered a protest to Panchito against a life of such distasteful fripperies for so dignified and honest looking a brute. To which, with his usual politeness, he agreed calling on heaven to witness "un caso melancolico." Panchito's deductive capacities may be wanting, but his politeness is something sublime.

We had in our peregrinations passed the "Foot of Venus," the "Door of the Sun," and we turned down now by the "Holy Ghost" (the subriquet of a pulque shop) to the market. It is an inner square around which the booths are built. There are a few counters with awnings, but the bulk of the goods are spread on sacking on the ground, in the centre of which is seated the proprietor, and probably the whole family, their appearance suggesting a contact with. every element save a saponaceous one. Domestic and maternal cares are attended to between sales, and babies spanked and fed in temporary lulls of business with the calm assurance usually born of perfect seclusion.

We recognized the homely and familiar. faces of many vegetables, and some novel and purely Mexican. They are nearly all grown on the famous "floating islands," and towed down the Viga canal, a distance of five miles. There were golden pyramids of pineapples, oranges, and limes, swinging branches of plantain and bananas, sheafs of

tamarinds, pomegranates, chayote, aguacate, and chirimoya-the last sometimes called vegetable ice cream. It is a fruit larger than the most presumptuous orange, enclosed in a dusky rind, the delicious creamy centre sown here and there with a brown seed the size of a Tonka bean. Whole stalls were devoted to the sale of chiles, piled in mountains of red and yellow.

Here were crates of pottery for cooking purposes; the crude red delf of the Indians, as well as a dark blue native glassware, in water bottles and trays.

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The place reeked with filth under foot, and the rankest compound of villainous smells that ever offended nostrils" waxed stronger and stronger as we proceeded. In this "dem'd, damp, moist, unpleasant spot," we felt as if we were spinning around, the more for the jostle of marketers, the lurch of heaping baskets, and the bewildering din of sounds, in which was mingled the jargon of the Indians, the chatter of parrots, the yelp of dogs, and the squawk of poultryand that reminded us that we were deputized to have Panchito order a couple of chickens.

We well recalled guajolote (turkey), it sounded droll and seemed to express the strut of the fowl; but-chicken? In vain we consulted and cudgeled our brains, while the anxious little saleswoman produced black and brown and speckled heauties of the gobbler order to tempt our evidently critical taste.

We only shook our heads, while Panchito wrapped his sarape around him like a Roman senator, and thumping his forehead with closed fist at the stupendous problem, gave voice to, an occasional, "Caramba! Eso es muy estraño!"

A crowd of spectators gathered around (not with overt curiosity, but with the idle dalliance of a people who have unlimited mañana, just oceans of time) and watched the proceedings. They numbered in their midst a pale cadaverous peon with a string

of sausages suspended in transit like the cup of Tantalus, and a gay gallero, splendid in a velvet waistcoat and a ribboned hat, the implement of his industry under his arm-a black game-cock with blood-thirsty gaff. We experienced sudden illumination--Ah ha! we have it; and we confidently ask, "Tiene V. un chico guajolote?"

Of course we got a little turkey, at which we shook our heads foolishly, while the crowd nudged each other but maintained a solemn gravity, and the vender at this last dismal failure relapsed into a perplexed melancholy.

We were about to give it up when a miserable chicken went sulking under the counter, and we pointed him out triumphantly.

The saleswoman brightened, with joyful

cries of "Pollo! pollo!" and the sick peon proceeded to swallow the boluses of sausage (agreeing with Horace: "By ham preferably, a sausage rather, the stomach craves to be restored to its true tone and appetite.") "Ay, Dios mio," said Panchito with evident feeling, taking the chickens, just as the great bell in a neighboring steeple clanged twelve, and the game cock, though bottom side up, uttered two ear splitting crows, determined to sound the tocsin of high noon regardless of difficulties. The wares disappeared. The frijoles and tortillas and the ever present frying pan, with its lumps of liver and windpipe, made their appearance; and we started for home freighted with the memory of the most novel experience of our lives.

G. B. Cole.

In Rome one meets all sorts of people. Every nationality and every rank of society is represented in the sojourners there. If one keeps one's eyes open, there is no better place in the world to study character. About one person we met there George and I never could agree. She was a little blueeyed, sweet-faced woman, Mrs. Douglas by name. We met her first in one of the galleries, fell in with her again in a pedestrian excursion along the Appian Way, and made friends with her at once, after the easy manner of Americans abroad.

There

was something very attractive about the little woman, aside from the delicacy that distinguished her as an unmistakable lady. She was always simply dressed, but with exquisite neatness, and invariably in black. She had that easy air of self-possession that belongs to old travelers, and I was amused to see the respect with which the Roman hackmen treated her. One who had outrageously overcharged us the day before, received his correct fare from her without a murmur. These proverbial thieves are shrewd judges of character.

But the point upon which George and I could not agree was this: I maintained that though our new friend called herself Mrs. and not Miss Douglas, she did not look or act like a married woman.

"Good gracious, Eleanor," George exclaimed when I imparted my theory to him,

do you expect people to look and act any differently for being married than they would otherwise?'

"Of course," I said positively. "At least women always do. You can't tell so much about men, because marriage doesn't affect them as it does women. It's a comparatively unimportant matter to them. But

"Yes, that's what I thought it was," he answered gravely.

I had not expected to get any sympathy from George in this matter. I had been married six months, and had learned many things in that time. I had learned for one thing that George had his opinion on the reasoning faculty of women. And what was more, I had begun to be impressed by the fact that even living with me was not likely to be able to overcome the force of long established habit. However, I also had an opinion on the subject; and I had no intention of becoming that contemptible creature, a woman who receives her opinions ready made from her husband, and wants no other authority than "he says so." I was therefore as firmly fixed in my opinion in regard to little Mrs. Douglas as if I had not been laughed at; and only longed to prove my theory and enjoy my triumph over masculine cynicism.

The truth, whatever it was, was likely to become known in good time, for scarcely a day passed without our running across our new friend. Picture galleries, museums, and ruins seemed equally to be haunted by her gentle presence. Finding her to be attracted by the same things that interested