"But no, m'sieur, he is my youngest, and he has said-my Jacques did-that he will never leave his mother. But what will you? he was all I had to give, and when this war came it was not likely he would be passed over. He is a fine boy, m'sieur, is my Jacques; ah, and so were the others!" She sighed and broke off abruptly.

66 Have you other children?" There is a patient sweetness in the wrinkled face, such a mingling of sorrow and hope in the glistening dark eyes, that the Englishman is stirred out of his usual indifference to fellow-travellers.

"I am the mother of five, m'sieur, but the others were much, much older than Jacques. They were all taken for soldiers. Two of them died at Magenta, and two in Algeria, and now my Jacques too is wounded."

"And you are on your way to nurse him? Have you come from a long dis

tance ?"

"From Trochu, m'sieur. It is some miles from Bordeaux. If I could have gone by the railroad it would not have taken so long. As it is, I have been four days."

"But you cannot have walked all that immense distance; and you are lame,

too!"

a

"Pardon, m'sieur, but I have walked the most of it except when I have gone a little way in charrette. Consider, m'sieur-how else could I get to Jacques ? I have a little money, it is true-see here, m'sieur." She unfastens the handkerchief which is tied over her cap and shows the end of the stocking head-gear knotted below the tassel. "But I carry that to my Jacques. He cannot walk, the poor boy, and I must take him home with me to Trochu as soon as he can leave the ambulance. And, m'sieur, with the pardon of m'sieur, I am not lame. My feet are sore and blistered, and a stone has got into my sabot and has cut my left foot. It is for that reason, m'sieur, that I am so glad to find a voiture which goes to O. I shall tell Jacques of the bounty of m'sieur, and we will both pray for him, and that he may not be wounded in battle."

The Englishman is silent. He thinks of the intense heat of these last four days, and of the sandy, flinty roads that lie between O- and Trochu, for he is a traveller; and then he looks at the frail,

bent form beside him, so spare and fleshless, and yet with such small bones that they scarcely show under the wrinkled skin.

"But I suppose Jacques would have come to you as soon as he was strong enough ?"

The withered lips are pressed tightly together, but they quiver nevertheless. She keeps her eye steadfastly fixed on the Englishman.

"It may be that he will never be strong; that is in the hands of the good God; but he will be happier for the sight of his mother. Ah, m'sieur, you do not know the loving heart of my Jacques."

She turned her face away abruptly, and then came a little choking sob. It was not as if she were ashamed of her sorrow, but she would not obtrude it on her companion. He left her in peace. He thought if she cried herself to sleep it would do her good; and she did sleep peacefully.

Just at two o'clock the voiture halted. It had halted before, but not with so violent a jerk. The old woman started, awoke, and the Englishman, who had dozed off for a few minutes, yawned, and shook himself. The conducteur came to the door of the coupé.

"We are near O, m'sieur. Where does m'sieur wish to be set down ?" "At the hospital."

In a few minutes they were rolling again along the high road.

"When you get to the hospital how shall you find your son ?" The Englishman had been in similar scenes, and he foresaw that a crowd of wounded and dying men lay at O

66

Pardon, m'sieur, but I have the number of my Jacques. He is number seven. And also I have the chaplain's letter. I am to ask for M'sieur Saxe, the chaplain, and he will conduct me to my Jacques."

Again her eyes glisten with that wonderful blending of hope and sorrow. Hitherto their way has lain across open country, unscathed as yet by the tread of war; only the untilled fields and the absence of crops speak of the universal desolation that broods over France. But close to O— everything changes; blackened houses in ruins, others riddled with balls, and windowless, are to be seen on all sides as the voiture draws up within a

they go back along the road, speak of it one to another:

"She is a parent or some friend, but it is strange she was not there at the beginning."

His companion turns round and sees the old woman following them. Le Père Saxe is some way on ahead, but she will not venture to address herself to him until he has put off his surplice.

"Ma mère," says one of the men kindly, "is it any one belonging to you that we have been laying there?"

"But no. I thank you, my friend, for your kind thought. I am a stranger just arrived from Trochu, and I thought I would pray for the departed one, that is all. Au revoir, my good friend."

Her

She nods and falls into the rear. poor stiff knees tremble, but still the gladness is in her eyes. Soon, very soon now, she shall reach the hospital and be with her Jacques.

"They can nurse him better than I can," she says, dragging one weary foot after its fellow, and panting in the treeless road, "but my Jacques will love dearly to see me. He loves his mother and tries to comfort her, does my Jacques."

Her kind friend, Mr. Martin, stands at the door as she goes in. She makes him a deep courtesy.

"How ill he looks-and yet he has not had nearly so long a journey as I have. Ah! it is as the good curé says, the back is always made for the burden."

Mr. Martin had come out to breathe the air and refresh his mind from the terrible sights and sufferings he had been witnessing-suffering which only insensibility could alleviate, which only death could cure. He shuddered, as he leaned against the open doorway, in thinking of the mere physical pain that was being endured over almost the whole of France. "And this is not all; there is mental agony still greater in the desolate homes, widowed mothers and their little ones. That poor creature now" he smiled as she courtesied-" how will she find her son? Perhaps suffering the tortures of those poor fellows I have just left; perhaps more mercifully dying; and yet how hard for her to have taken that long, devoted journey just to see him die!"

Meanwhile the old woman waited natiently in the small boarded space which served as entrance. Presently the man NEW SERIES.-VOL. XVI., No. 5

who had spoken to her on the road came close up to where she stood.

"Well, my mother," he said, "what are you looking for?"

“Pardon, but I have a letter here from m'sieur the chaplain, and he tells me to ask for him and he will take me to the person I am come to see."

"In good time, my mother; then you will do well to come with me. I am going to find the father himself."

He opened a door in the wooden partition and held it while she passed into the hospital. The patients lay on straw on one side of the long, narrow shed, some with coverlets over them, but the greater number had tossed these off in their feverish movements. Bandaged legs and arms and heads were everywhere; and in some faces, where there was no apparent injury, the expression of agony was terrible. The mother of Jacques was full of the thought of her son, but she could not pass unmoved by this line of haggard sufferers.

"Poor man! poor boy!" she murmured; and once or twice she bent down and strove to place the coverlet over a sufferer who had thrown it off in his restless struggles.

Her conductor opened a door at the end, and she found herself in the open air again, facing another of the long low sheds.

Dr. L. stood here. He was speaking eagerly to a priest. He only wore his cassock now, but the old woman recognized the Père Saxe. Her conductor stood waiting, but Dr. L. had heard their approach, and he looked up quickly.

"But yes, father," he said to the priest,. "here is a good woman who came from Othis morning. You have charge of her son, it seems. Will you take her to him ?"

Her heart throbbed fast. Till now her quiet faith had kept her calm, but the nearness of coming joy was harder to bear in patience than the long suspense had been. Père Saxe looked very kindly at her. "I have already seen you this morning."

She courtesied, but her knees trembled. "Can you tell me your son's number? I fear we have but few names in this ward."

He opens the door. The ward is lighter and more cheerful looking than that through which she has passed. There are:

39

fewer patients, and their beds look more comfortable. The bed nearest the door is empty.

"Will you tell me the number ?" repeats the priest.

"Number seven, at your service, mon père."

The Sister is at the further end of the room, and Dr. L. has gone on to look at her patients. She comes up quickly to Père Saxe while the old woman speaks; then she too speaks and looks to the other end of the room.

"Follow me," says Monsieur Saxe.

The mother of Jacques gives a straining, wistful look at every face as she passes, but she sees no one like her handsome boy. The men who lie here are all bearded, and look as if they had served in many campaigns, though their faces are so pale and bloodless. Père Saxe halts before a bed and looks round for her, but she does not hurry forward as he expects. It is a youth, it is true, who lies there, but it is not her son. She shakes her head.

the shock. Very quietly she follows the priest till he reaches the foot of the empty bed by the door, and there kneels down. She clasps her wrinkled hands over her face, but there is no sobbing burst of grief. Only the père, as he stands pityingly beside her, sees tears trickle through the trembling fingers. He bends down and whispers, "He was so patient and good, your Jacques; and you prayed for him this morning. His last wish was, that you should know where he lay, and God in His mercy guided you Himself thither."

He holds his crucifix to her, and she kisses it reverently, and then he offers up a prayer for the departed spirit of her son.

The voiture stands waiting to go back to D next morning. There are no other passengers except the mother of Jacques. Mr. Martin has come to see her off, and he shakes her hand heartily as he places her in the voiture.

"Yours has been a weary sorrow, my friend, but you have borne it like a hero

truth.

of

The old eyes glisten even yet as she looks at him.

"Monsieur, my trouble might have been worse. My Jacques"-here the tears run over—“ was always so strong, so manly! He would never be helped or waited on. He did all for me, and if he had lived he must have been, the père God has spared him this torment. M'sieur, says, a poor, helpless cripple, and the good I must now go home and comfort the Adieu! my Ichild who loved him. poor

good m'sieur: I cannot thank you. Ah! if it had not been for you I should perhaps not have assisted at his burial. M'sieur, when I pray for benefactors I shall pray for you."

[From Temple Bar.

THE development of dress presents a strong analogy to that of organisms, as explained by the modern theories of evolution; and in this article I propose to illustrate some of the features which they have in common. We shall see that the

truth expressed by the proverb, “ Natura non facit saltum," is applicable in one case as in the other; the law of progress holds good in dress, and forms blend into one another with almost complete continuity. In both cases a form yields to a

succeeding form, which is better adapted to the then surrounding conditions; thus, when it ceased to be requisite that men in active life should be ready to ride at any moment, and when riding had for some time ceased to be the ordinary method of travelling, knee breeches and boots yielded to trousers. The "Ulster Coat," now so much in vogue, is evidently largely fostered by railway travelling, and could hardly have flourished in the last century, when men either rode or travelled in coaches, where there was no spare room for any very bulky garment.

A new invention bears a kind of analogy to a new variation in animals; there are many such inventions, and many such variations; those that are not really beneficial die away, and those that are really good become incorporated by "natural selection," as a new item in our system. I may illustrate this by pointing out how macintosh-coats and crush-hats have become somewhat important items in our dress.

66

For

Then, again, the degree of advancement in the scale of dress may be pretty accurately estimated by the extent to which various "organs" are specialized. example, about sixty years ago, our present evening-dress was the ordinary dress for gentlemen; top-boots, always worn by old-fashioned John Bull" in Punch's cartoons, are now reserved for the huntingfield; and that the red coat was formerly only a best coat, appears from the following observations of "a Lawyer of the Middle Temple," in No. 129 of the Spectator :— "Here (in Cornwall) we fancied ourselves in Charles II.'s reign, the people having made little variations in their dress since that time. The smartest of the country squires appear still in the Monmouth cock; and when they go awooing (whether they have any post in the militia or not) they put on a red coat."

But besides the general adaptation of dress above referred to, there is another influence which has perhaps a still more important bearing on the development of dress, and that is fashion. The love of novelty, and the extraordinary tendency which men have to exaggerate any peculiarity, for the time being considered a mark of good station in life, or handsome in itself, give rise I suppose to fashion.

*P. 16, vol. 1, of "Primitive Culture," London, 1871.

This influence bears no distant analogy to the "sexual selection," on which so much stress has recently been laid in the "Descent of Man." Both in animals and dress, remnants of former stages of development survive to a later age, and thus preserve a tattered record of the history of their evolution.

These remnants may be observed in two different stages or forms. Ist. Some parts of the dress have been fostered and exaggerated by the selection of fashion, and are then retained and crystallized, as it were, as part of our dress, notwithstanding that their use is entirely gone (e.g. the embroidered pocket flaps in a court uniform, now sewn fast to the coat). 2dly. Parts originally useful have ceased to be of any service, and have been handed down in an atrophied condition.

The first class of cases have their analogue in the peacock's tail, as explained by sexual selection; and the second in the wing of the apteryx, as explained by the effects of disuse.

Of the second kind of remnant Mr. Tylor gives very good instances when he says:

"The ridiculous little tails of the German postilion's coat show of themselves how they came to dwindle to such absurd rudiments; but the English clergyman's bands no longer convey their history to the eye, and look unaccountable enough till one has seen the intermediate stages through which they came down from the more serviceable wide collars, such as Milton wears in his portraits, and which gave their name to the 'band-box' they used to be kept in." These collars are curiously enough worn to this day by the choristers of Jesus College, Cambridge.

According to such ideas as these it becomes interesting to try to discover the marks of descent in our dresses, and in making this attempt many things apparently meaningless may be shown to be full of meaning.

Women's dress retains a general similarity from age to age, together with a great instability in details, and therefore does not afford so much subject for remark as does men's dress. I propose, therefore, to confine myself almost entirely to the latter, and to begin at the top of the body,

* See p. 356 of Fairholt's "Costume in England:" London, 1846.