The Christmas Kalends of Provence

. Nominally, the Vidame is the reigning sovereign;

become obsolescent since the Revolution and very generally has given place to the fine-ladyish "Madamo." With a little stretching, it may be rendered by o

er of one long accustomed to command. As is apt to be the way with little round women, her temper is of a brittle cast and her hasty rulings sometimes smack of injustice; but her nature (and this also is characteristic of her type) is so warmly generous that her heart easily can be caught into kindness on the rebound. The Vidame, who in spite of his antiquarian testiness is som

un's favour at the outset; a fact of which I was apprised on the evening of my arrival-it was at dinner, and the housekeeper herself had brought in a bottle of precious Chateauneuf-du-Pape-by the cordiality with which she joined forces with the Vidame in reprobat

ion, "when we planted the blessed Saint Barbara's grain. And now

er even had heard of Saint Barbara's gra

eal calamity. "Can it be that there are no Christians in monsieur's America?

nt Barbara's day the women fill two, sometimes three, plates with wheat or lentils which they set afloat in water and then stand in the warm ashes of the fire-place or on a sunny window ledge to germinate. This is done in order to foretell the harvest of the coming year, for as Saint Barbara's grain gr

AINT BARBA

found, is for only two. The custom must be of Pagan origin, and therefore dates from far back of the time when Saint Barbara lived in her three-windowed tower at Heliopolis. Probably her name was tagged to it because of old these votive and prophe

the mention of its foundation in Paganism she sniffed audibly, and upon the Vidame's referen

twelve days, called coumtié, immediately preceding Christmas-are foretellers of the weather for the new twelve months to come; each in its turn, by rain or sunshine or by heat or cold, showing the character of the correspondingly numbered month of the new year. That the twelve prophetic days are those which immediately precede the solstice puts their endowment with prophetic power very far back into antiquity. Our farmers, too, have the saying, 'When Christmas falls on a Friday you may sow in ashes'-meaning that the harvest of the ensuing year surely will be so bountif

e was anxiety in his tone as he added: "Misè makes superb coffee; but sometimes, when I have offended her, it is not good at all." An