Part 56

For a number of choir boys to sing an epithalamium, walking up the aisle before the bride, is a new and very beautiful Easter fashion.

A favourite entertainment for Easter is a christening. Christening parties are becoming very important functions in the art of entertaining. Many Roman Catholics are so anxious for the salvation of the little new soul, that they have their children baptized as soon as possible, but others put off this important ceremony until mamma can go to church, when little master is five weeks old. Then friends are invited to the ceremony very much in this fashion:--

Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton request the pleasure of your company at the baptism of their infant daughter at the Cathedral, Monday, March 30, at 12 o'clock. At home, after the ceremony, 14 W. Ellicott Square.

Many wealthy Roman Catholics have private chapels where the ceremony may be performed earlier.

Presents are sent to the mamma, of flowers and bonbonnières shaped like an altar, a cradle, a powder-box; and there may be gold tea-scoops, pap-spoons and a caudle-cup. Gifts of old Dutch silver and the inevitable posy or couplet are very favourite gifts for the baby and mamma on these auspicious occasions.

Caudle is a very succulent porridge made of oatmeal, raisins, spices, and rum, all boiled together for several days until it becomes a jelly gruel. It is very much sweetened, and is served hot in cups. The caudle-cup designed by Albrecht Dürer for some member of the family of Maximilian is still shown. Caudle cards are very often stamped with a cameo resemblance of these cups, and the invitation reads:--

MRS. JAMES HAMILTON, at Home, Thursday, March 30, from three to six. Caudle.

These do not require an answer.

Very pretty tea-gowns are worn by mamma and the ladies of her family for this entertainment, but the guests come in bonnets and street dresses. There is no objection to having the afternoon tea-table with its silver tea-kettle, alcohol-lamp, pretty silver tea-set, plates of bread and butter, and little cakes ready for those ladies who prefer tea. Caudle is sometimes added to the teas of a winter afternoon, by the remnants of old Dutch families, even when there is no little master as a raison d'être, and delicious it is.

There is a pretty account of the marriage of Marguerite of Austria with Philibert, the handsome Duke of Savoy. It is called Mariage aux oeufs. She had come to the Castle of Brae, in the charming district of Bresse lying on the western slopes of the Alps. Here the rich princess kept open house, and Philibert, who was hunting in the neighbourhood, came to pay his court to her. It was Easter Monday, and high and low danced together on the green. The old men drew their bows on a barrel filled with wine, and when one succeeded in planting his arrow firmly in it he was privileged to drink as much as he pleased jusqu'à merci.

A hundred eggs were scattered in a level place, covered with sand, and a lad and lass, holding each other by the hand, came forward to execute a dance of the country. According to the ancient custom, if they succeeded in finishing the branle without breaking a single egg they became affianced, and even the will of their parents might not avail to break their union. Three couples had already tried it unsuccessfully and shouts of laughter derided their attempts, when the sound of a horn was heard, and Philibert of Savoy, radiant with youth and happiness, appeared on the scene. He bent his knees before the noble châtelaine and besought her hospitality. He proposed to her to try the egg fortune. She accepted. Their grace and beauty charmed the lookers-on and they succeeded, without a single crash, in treading the perilous maze.

"Savoy and Austria!" shouted the crowd. And she said, "Let us adopt the custom of Bresse."

They were married, and enjoyed a few years of exquisite happiness; then the beloved husband died. Marguerite survived him long, but never forgot him. She built in his memory a beautiful church. Travellers go to-day to see their magnificent tomb.

The egg has been in all ages and in all countries the subject of infinite mystery, legend, and history. The ancient Finns believed that a mystic bird laid an egg in the lap of Vaimainon, who hatched it in his bosom. He let it fall in the water, and it broke. The lower portion of the shell formed the earth, the upper the sky, the liquid white became the sun, the yolk the moon, while little bits of egg-shells became the stars.

Old English and Irish nurses instruct the children, when they have eaten a boiled egg, to push the spoon through the bottom of the shell to hinder the witches from making a boat of it.

It is difficult to ascertain the precise origin of the custom of offering eggs at the festival of Easter. The Persians, the Russians, and the Jews all follow it.

Amongst the Romans the year began at Easter, as it did amongst the Franks under the Capets. Many presents are exchanged, and as an egg is the beginning of all things, nothing better could be found as an offering. Its symbolic meaning is striking. We offer our friends all the blessings contained under that fragile shell, whose fragility represents that of happiness here below. The Romans commenced their repasts with an egg; hence the proverbial phrase, "ab ovo usque ad mala," or, as we still say, "beginning ab ovo."

Another reason given for the Easter egg is that, about the fourth century, the Church forbade the use of eggs in Lent. But as the heretical hens would go on laying, the eggs accumulated to such a degree that they were boiled hard and given away. They were given to the children for playthings, and they dyed them of gay colours. In certain churches in Belgium the priests, at the beginning of a glad anthem, threw the eggs at the choristers who threw them back again, dancing to the music whilst catching the frail eggs that they might not break.

In Germany, where means are more limited than in France, the Easter egg bonbonnière is rare. There are none of the eight-hundred-pound kind, which was made of enamel, and which on its inside had engraved the gospel for the day, while by an ingenious mechanism a little bird, lodged in this pretty cage, sang twelve airs from as many operas.

But in Germany, to make up for this poverty, they have transformed the hare into an oviparous animal, and in the pastry cook's windows one sees this species of hen sitting upright in a nest surrounded by eggs. I have often wondered if that inexplicable saying "a mare's nest," might not have been "a hare's nest." As a lucus a non lucendo it would have done as well. When a German child, at any season of the year, sees a hare run across the field, he says, "Hare, good little hare, lay plenty of eggs for me on Easter day." It is the custom of German families, on Easter eve, to place sugar-eggs and real eggs, the former filled with sugar plums, in a nest, and then to conceal it with dried leaves in the garden that the joyous children may hunt for them on Easter morning.

It is a superstition all over the world that we should wear new clothes on Easter Day. Bad luck will follow if there is not at least one article which is new.

HOW TO ENTERTAIN CHILDREN.

From the realms of old-world story There beckons a lily hand, That calls up the sweetness, the glory, The sounds of a magic land.

Ah, many a time in my dreaming Through that blessed region I roam! Then the morning sun comes with its beaming And scatters it all like foam! HEINE.

In the life of Madame Swetchine we read the following account of the amusements of a clever child:--

"The occupation of a courtier did not prevent Monsieur Soymonof from bestowing the most assiduous care on the education of a daughter, who for six years was his only child. He was struck by the progress of her young intellect. She showed an aptitude for languages, music, and drawing, while she developed firmness of character,--a rare quality in a child.

"She desired a watch with an ardour which transpired in all her movements, and her father had promised her one. The watch came and was worn with the keenest enjoyment; but suddenly a new thought seized upon the little Sophia. She reflected that there was something better than a watch. To relinquish it of her own accord, she hurried to her father and restored to him the object of her passionate desires, acknowledging the motive. Her father looked at her, took the watch, shut it up in a bureau drawer, and said no more about it.

"M. Soymonof's rooms were adorned with bronzes, medals, and costly marbles. Sophia was on terms of intimacy with these personages of fable and history; but she felt an unconquerable repugnance to a cabinet full of mummies. The poor child blushed for her weakness, and one day, when alone, opened the terrible door, ran straight to the nearest mummy, took it up, and embraced it till her strength and courage gave away, and she fell down in a swoon. At the noise of her fall, her father hastened in, raised her in his arms, and obtained from her, not without difficulty, an avowal of the terrors which she had hitherto concealed from him. But this supreme effort was as good for her as a victory. From that day the mummies were to her only common objects of interest and curiosity.