the art of pharmacy. The stomachs of our ancestors were accustomed to very complicated dishes. Cookery was a more difficult science than metaphysics.

Then, too, the whole charge of the garden lay upon the housewife's shoulders, and gardening was by no means the simple affair it is nowadays. Our great-grandmothers, in their gardening capacity, knew a whole host of things which have long since been forgotten. To prevent the fruit falling from the tree before its time, they bored a hole in the roots and drove through it a whitethorn peg; to prevent the cherries from ripening too soon, they surrounded the roots with unslacked lime; when they wanted scarlet pippins, they softened the grafts in pike's blood, and when they wished to propagate aromatic fruit, they bored a hole in the trunk of the tree and filled it with fragrant oil. Our grandmothers were so clever that they could compel a pear tree to bring forth grapes; they could grow citrons as large as your head, figs with almond kernels inside and the letters of the alphabet outside, and even nuts without shells. They knew how to graft medlars on coffee trees, which then produced an entirely new fruit, exceedingly luscious and fragrant. When they wanted the bitter almond to bear sweet almonds, they took counsel of Theophrastus and drove iron nails into the roots. They knew the good and bad effects of winter upon all kinds of garden produce. Even the simple, unsophisticated potato, only just introduced from America, and called by them adenes cardensis, was powerless against their innumerable artifices. Our great-grandmothers knew and cultivated scores of vegetables the very names of which are unknown to their posterity. All their dishes were pungent with the most exquisite spices. They carried on a regular trade in all manner of wholesome herbs and pigment plants. Saffron alone was taken by the ton to the Zips markets, and thence exported to Turkey. The kitchen garden was a veritable gold mine to the thrifty housewife.

Nor must the flower garden be forgotten. In those days a speculation in tulips was going on which can only be compared with the Bourse speculations of our own days. The horticulturist had to carry about in his head a whole dictionary of French botanical terms if he meant to make a living. A lady gardener who understood her business had to know what species of flowers could be planted and sown under the zodiacal signs ♈, ♉, ♊, or ♋, ♌, ♍; to which the signs ♎, ♏, and ♐ are baleful; and how seldom those flourish which are planted under the signs ♑, ♒, and ♓; in fact, she had to have her almanac at her fingers' ends. The floral art had its own literature and its own professors, who disposed of tulips and carnations to the value of millions, and sent whole fleets laden with bulbs and plants to China and America. Nay, the most distinguished writers of Europe did not deem it beneath their dignity to dabble in the flower trade, just as the writers of our own day dabble in politics.

It was certainly much more beneficial for young women to read about such things than to fill their heads with the scandal and tomfoolery of these later times.

If, however, they must needs know something about love and antipathy, they could gather from these sage botanical records that the fig tree and the rue love each other, for which reason it is advisable to plant rue close to fig trees, especially as it keeps away those sworn enemies of figs, the frogs; that the asparagus loves the reed and the rosemary the sage, for which reason whoever sets about planting rosemary must first of all rub his hand well with sage leaves, so that the young transplants may thrive; that the orange tree loves the cypress and the vine the cherry tree, and that the lily thrives beside the rose, but also beside the garlic—'tis only a matter of taste. On the other hand, there are plants which hate, which absolutely cannot endure each other. For instance, when one plants the noble anthora close to the wild najollus, it dries up and withers, despite the most constant care; the angelica and the hemlock infallibly throttle each other; while the antipathy of the vine to the colewort goes so far that when a man who has drunk a little too much wine eats of the colewort he instantly becomes sober, and if you mix a little wine in the pot where the colewort is boiling it will never get soft, stew it as long as you will.

Now pretty Michal mastered all these sciences not only with edifying assiduity, but even with real enthusiasm; she found pleasure, employment, and profit therein. Her books, her science, and her flowers not only rejoiced her heart, they filled her pockets likewise. Her garden especially was a veritable gold mine, for while in those days a goose cost only a shilling and a young ox ten shillings, no one considered paragon tulip bulbs dear at ten pounds a piece. But (and this in Pastor Fröhlich's opinion was the greatest gain of all) the flowers and the books left the damsel no time for idle pranks; to this end the whole pedagogical system of the reverend gentleman had been directed from the very first.

Whenever his lectures called him away from home, the professor took down his grammars, lexicons, and other folios before he started, and gave Michal as much to learn by heart as would occupy her the whole time he was away at the Lyceum; then he locked the house door and walked off with the key in his pocket. The very first thing he did when he came home again was to make her repeat the set task from beginning to end. Such a method is infallible. A servant-maid, a governess, may deceive the cleverest cross-questioner, the ancient folios never. They tell him at once whether the damsel's eyes have been fixed on the book all the time, or whether they've been straying about elsewhere.

In this way pretty Michal picked up a very considerable store of general information.

Sundays and festivals were the only days on which she left the house, and then she used to walk to church by her father's side. On such occasions she wore a coffee-brown frock, with a collar reaching to the chin, and sleeves which hid the very tips of her fingers. The other girls prided themselves on the taste with which they adorned their girdles, but pretty Michal's girdle could not boast of as much as a silver buckle. Her parta, as the headdress of the Hungarian maidens is called, was quite black, and over it was thrown a veil which completely covered her face in front, and hung down so far over her shoulders behind that it was absolutely impossible to make out whether her twin long, pendent pigtails were blond or chestnut-brown. Her eyes, too, were not permitted to declare whether they were black or blue. During service they were well hidden behind their long lashes, for she modestly kept them fixed upon her prayer-book the whole time, and if she raised them during the sermon it was only to rivet them upon the preacher. Moreover, the very wise and proper regulation which not only separated the sexes, but made the men sit right behind the women, prevented her from ogling anybody even if she had a mind to. As for the students, they sat so high up in the choir that they could see nothing from thence but the notice-boards and the Decalogue.

Further, the reverend gentleman never took Michal to weddings or other entertainments, the canonical prescriptions forbidding a clergyman's daughter to dance. In fact, he did not even let her make the acquaintance of other girls, for fear she should get a