STOCK. 
145 
had on the spirits of an acquaintance 'with 
-whom he was making a tour in Normandy, in 
the first summer after the restoration of Louis 
XVIII. “ He had been induced to join a small 
party and leave his home, for the first time, to 
visit the opposite coast •, hut so truly British 
were his habits, that nothing could please or 
satisfy him. The soup was meagre, the pottage 
acid, the peas sweet, the wine sour, the coffee 
hitter; the girls brown, their eyes too black, 
their caps too high, their petticoats too short, 
their language unintelligible ; their houses old, 
the inns dirty, the country too open, the roads 
too straight: in short, he saw everything with 
such discontented eyes as to render the party 
uncomfortable, until good fortune led us to a 
rustic inn, where, in a small garden, were 
growing several fine Stocks, which, he affirmed, 
were the first good things he had seen since he 
left Sussex. On hearing the landlady acknow¬ 
ledge them to be de Girofliers de Brornpton, he 
insisted on halting at her house, where he 
treated the party with a dejeuner d la fourchette, 
and left the village with a sprig of the Brornpton 
Stock in his button-hole, his eyes sparkling 
o 
