266 A Walk from 



and well, and other Americans kuow him as well 

 as myself, who, though living in a palace of his 

 own, once occupied by an exiled French sovereign, 

 is just as simple and honest as a child in every feature 

 of his disposition and deportment. Every year he 

 has a Festival in his park, lasting two or three days. 

 It is a kind of out-door Parliament and a Greenwich 

 Fair combined, as it would seem at first sight to 

 an incidental spectator. I do not believe anything 

 in the rest of the wide world could equal this gather- 

 ing, for many peculiar features of enjoyment. It is 

 made up of both sexes and all ages and conditions ; 

 especially of the laboring classes. They come out 

 strong on these occasions. The round and red faced 

 boys and girls of villages and hamlets for a great 

 distance around look forward to this annual frolic with 

 exhilarating expectation. Never was romping and 

 racing and the amorous forfeit plays of the ring got 

 up under more favorable auspices, or with more 

 pleasant surroundings. It would do any man's heart 

 good, who was ever a genuine boy, to see the venerable 

 squire and his lady presiding over a race between 

 competing couples of ploughmen's boys, from ten to 

 fifteen years of age, running their rounds in the park, 

 barefooted, bare-headed, with faces as round and red 

 as a ripe pumpkin, and hair of the same color whipping 



