206 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



It was a bright October morning as we steamed 

 into the little harbor at Dieppe, and the first scene 

 that met my eye was, I suppose, a characteristic one 

 four or five old men and women towing a vessel 

 into a dock. They bent beneath the rope that passed 

 from shoulder to shoulder, and tugged away dog- 

 gedly at it, the women apparently more than able to 

 do their part. There is no equalizer of the sexes 

 like poverty and misery, and then it very often hap- 

 pens that the gray mare proves the better horse. 

 Throughout the agricultural regions, as we passed 

 along, the men apparently all wore petticoats; at 

 least, the petticoats were the most active and prom- 

 inent in the field occupations. Their wearers were 

 digging potatoes, pulling beets, following the harrow 

 (in one instance a thorn-bush drawn by a cow), and 

 stirring the wet, new-mown grass. I believe the 

 pantaloons were doing the mowing. But I looked in 

 vain for any Maud Miillers in the meadows, and have 

 concluded that these can only be found in New Eng- 

 land hay-fields ! And herein is one of the first sur- 

 prises that awaits one on visiting the Old World 

 countries, the absence of graceful, girlish figures, and 

 bright girlish faces, among the peasantry or rural 

 population. In France I certainly expected to see 

 female beauty everywhere, but did not get one gleam 

 all that sunny day till I got to Paris. Is it a plant 

 that only flourishes in cities on this side of the 

 Atlantic, or do all the pretty girls, as soon as they 

 are grown, pack their trunks, and leave for the gay 

 metropolis ? 



