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She was perfectly at home in the mountains, and spent much time in the huts of charcoal burners, huntsmen, or woodcutters, contented with the food they could give her and happy in her study. Thus she made her sketches for "Morning in the Highlands," "The Denizens of the Mountains," etc. She once lived six weeks with her party on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, where they saw no one save muleteers going and coming, with their long lines of loaded mules. Their only food was frogs' legs, which they prepared themselves, and the black bread and curdled milk which the country afforded. At evening the muleteers would amuse the strangers by dancing the national dances, and then repose in picturesque groups just suited to artistic sketching. In Scotland and in Switzerland, as well as in various portions of her own country, she had similar experiences, and her "Hay-Making in Auvergne" proves that she was familiar with the more usual phases of country life. At the Knowles sale in London, in 1865, her picture of "Spanish Muleteers Crossing the Pyrenees," one of the results of the above sojourn in these mountains, sold for two thousand guineas, about ten thousand dollars. I believe that, in spite of the large sums of money that she received, her habitual generosity and indifference to wealth prevented her amassing a large fortune, but her fame as an artist and her womanly virtues brought the rewards which she valued above anything that wealth could bestow--such rewards as will endure through centuries and surround the name of Rosa Bonheur with glory, rewards which she untiringly labored to attain.

Since the overthrow of communal feudalism and the establishment of an individualistic social order, necessitating personal ownership of property, and the universal use of money, trustful confidence is rapidly passing away. Everything is being more and more accurately reduced to a money basis. The old samurai scorn for money seems to be wholly gone, an astonishing transformation of character. Since the disestablishment of the samurai class many of them have gone into business. Not a few have made tremendous failures for lack of business instinct, being easily fleeced by more cunning and less honorable fellows who have played the "confidence" game most successfully; others have made equally great successes because of their superior mental ability and education. The government of Japan is to-day chiefly in the hands of the descendants of the samurai class. They have their fixed salaries and everything is done on a financial basis, payment being made for work only. The lazy and the incapable are being pushed to the wall. Many of the poorest and most pitiable people of the land to-day are the proud sons of the former aristocracy, who glory in the history of their ancestors, but are not able or willing to change their old habits of thought and manner of life.

How alert and vigilant the birds are, even when absorbed in building their nests! In an open space in the woods, I see a pair of cedar-birds collecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Following the direction in which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in the fork of a small soft-maple, which stands amid a thick growth of wild-cherry trees and young beeches. Carefully concealing myself beneath it, without any fear that the workmen will hit me with a chip or let fall a tool, I await the return of the busy pair. Presently I hear the well-known note, and the female sweeps down and settles unsuspectingly into the half-finished structure. Hardly have her wings rested, before her eye has penetrated my screen, and with a hurried movement of alarm, she darts away. In a moment, the male, with a tuft of wool in his beak (for there is a sheep pasture near), joins her, and the two reconnoitre the premises from the surrounding bushes. With their beaks still loaded, they move around with a frightened look, and refuse to approach the nest till I have moved off and lain down behind a log. Then one of them ventures to alight upon the nest, but, still suspecting all is not right, quickly darts away again. Then they both together come, and after much peeping and spying about, and apparently much anxious consultation, cautiously proceed to work. In less than half an hour, it would seem that wool enough has been brought to supply the whole family, real and prospective, with socks, if needles and fingers could be found fine enough to knit it up. In less than a week, the female has begun to deposit her eggs,--four of them in as many days,--white tinged with purple, with black spots on the larger end. After two weeks of incubation, the young are out.

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