205 visitors went to see the man nursing his baby in bed, and left small contributions. But it became so great a nuisance, and it evoked so much ridicule, that it was ordered that no more cases should be reported. What can have been the origin of such a custom ? Probably in the uncultured mind, the man was regarded as the only one to whom the child belonged, and the wife was nothing but the tilled field, that produced the seed that had been sown, and which belonged to the sower and not to the unconsidered ground that produced the plant. The Basque people call their tongue Eskuara, and their race Euscaldunuc. In France they occupy the districts of Labour d, Soule and Navarre, and number about one hundred and forty thousand souls. A recent writer says of them : " From their mysterious cradle in the east they have brought with them superstitions along with their tongue. Well-built, vigorous men, brave, active, given to hard work, often artistic, these Basques pass before one's eyes as men with their lips closed. One must study their language to know them intimately." But that is precisely what is more than difficult to achieve, where the tongue has no links with any of the Aryan languages with which one is familiar. Chateau St. Aulaire was reputed to be haunted, and it was on that account that it was let to us at so cheap a rate. There was on the left hand as one entered the hall a commodious billiard-room, and high up in the wall opposite to the windows was a range of oval shields with coats of arms displayed on them. A secret stair led to a blind passage that could obtain light only by throwing open one of these shields that turned outward on hinges. The passage led nowhere, and why contrived is hard to explain. Sometimes at night, when we were playing billiards one of these shields would fly open, and some of us thought we could discern a dim grey face in the oval, looking down on us. Repeatedly, when this took place, has one or other of us rushed to the secret stair, and, if the door were not locked, run up the steps, to discover no one, and yet to find the coat of arms window mysteriously open. One night my father was startled. He had left the smoking-room, so as to go to bed. This smoking-room was on the ground
