I will not quote-I detest quotations-it is, however, the fault of people like Voltaire, who will anticipate me in my best thoughts. Like mice, her feet peeped in and out; but my words can but faintly give any adequate idea of――

"Don't go to sleep," cried Granville. My God!-sleep while my senses were boiling over in a wild turmoil of unwonted excitement !

We had not started yet, and a porter was passing by, when Marie beckoned to him-so did I. “A foot-warmer," we both exclaimed, synchronously, simultaneously, contemporaneously. Marie half laughed, half blushed. I did not dare to do the former; the latter I effected. Nothing affects me so much as the coincidence of expression in opinions or tastes, however trivial the subject may be. I feel convinced that I should propose on the spot to any woman who admitted that she disliked caviare.

The foot-warmer came, and Marie placed her feet upon it. The situation, however, was one of extreme embarrassment. I had no conception where Marie's feet were. If I came into contact with them, great God! it might have the effect of inducing her to withdraw her feet. And during these reflections I felt that Marie knew what was passing through my mind—that she knew I was calling her Marie; yet I could not call her by her other name for an obvious reason-I did not know it.

I declare I didn't move my foot. It was quite at the edge, and yet I

felt a little furry thing near it. Oh heavens! why did not Providence create me a centipede, that so I might have experienced a hundred such sensations-"doux transports ou s'égarent les pieds."

I took away my foot. Marie, actuated by the same instinct, did the same; and backwards and forwards three separate times we deposited them again together. Alas! that this combination of moral restraint and gratification should have an end.

"Pardon me," I said at last. "It is my fault," exclaimed Marie.

I know not to what lengths my disclaimer of this solution might have carried me, had not Marie at this juncture got out with her father at St Omer.

"Rather a nice-looking girl," said Granville.

I rushed into the buffet.

"A nice-looking girl!" My impression is that Granville would call Venus a fine-looking woman, and add that she would look well in a charade.

It is a strange thing that none of the solecisms of which I have been a witness during my travels, so often repeated, have had any effect in shaking my prejudices. It is strange, for I have been in countries where the women ate asparagus with their knives and forks, and had never read Miss Austen. I have been at dinners where there were fish-knives, and men with black-lace ties; and I have seen Miss drink alternate draughts of brandy with her groom!

"Disgraziatamente," I began-but that long word had put him to flight. I had no need to continue, and I went back to the carriage.

I had not been a moment there, however, before I felt misgivings as to what I had done. Perhaps the poor man really was in need of some information-perhaps had lost something-had got into some difficulty. I had lost an opportunity, it might be, of conferring a real benefit, without any discomfort to myself. I never feel so charitable as when I have just missed

being so. I had behaved like a brute. Then, too, could he believe that an Italian did not know French, and would he not-on second thoughts I settled this question to my satisfaction, on considering my country neighbour's powers of information.

"Did you see a man," said Granville, "in a wild state of excitement, who had lost his child?"

My anxiety was relieved by this, for my country neighbour had had twelve children all born alive.

"Will monsieur have one?' "Not for the world, Monsieur ("De St Croix" was sup

plied) "would I deprive you."

It was a paper containing three brioches. Marie ate one-(what were the sensations of that brioche?). Monsieur de St Croix offered the other two to Granville and me. I own I envied him his feelings. Should I in that position have been willing, not to share, but to give up my all to two strangers whom possibly I should never see again? That possibility I shuddered at. Was I not looking forward to the glance of recognition I hoped to gain from Marie? I declare I understood for the first time Dante's faintness when Beatrice did not bow to him. I understood the whole possible charm of a salutazione.

"How stupid I am!" exclaimed Marie.

Her muff had dropped, and had fallen in a horizontal position. I stooped to pick it up-so did Marie. I put my hand into one side-into

Well, never mind. Milton was sadly wrong when he said that love was judicious, and had its seat in reason. It is totally without judg ment very often, and not unfrequently has its seat in a muff. Love was once defined to be-noit is an improper definition, I think; not that I ever know, however, what is improper and what is not. I am the most unfortunate person in the world, the originator of half the current bêtises. I am like Eliza in the Plain Dealer,' and cannot see the indecency of "china"in fact, like Agnes, "d'une innocence pareille, que je crois que les enfants qu'on fait se font par l'oreille."

*

I was in bed. I had not been in bed long, when I got up to put my boots, which I had forgotten, outside my door. To what great things do the most trivial actions lead-how frequently the whole career of a life is changed by a remark! I had opened the door, and was placing my boots in a position such as I conceived could not escape the attention of the individual whose duty it was to——, when suddenly a waiter rushed past me in great precipitation, crying out, "The fire, monsieur, the fire!" and was gone before I could ejaculate more than "Where? how?"

My first thought was to save Marie. I had seen her go into her room, No. 98, just across the corridor. I rushed across the corridor, and had put my hand upon the door-handle, when it flashed across me that my dress did not quite fulfil all those convenances which might be necessary. Gracious heavens! had not Virginie refused to be saved, and had not she jumped into the watery abyss sooner than consent to owe her life to a man, the remembrance of whom would for ever afterwards have shocked her inherent modesty and in this case I should have less excuse than the sailor, for I could not contemplate the chance of being obliged to swim. Did I not know another case where a husband refused to allow his wife to step into a basket two feet below the edge of the steamer, even when the boat was sinking, for fear of her; and was not a bystander forced to do injustice to his gentle nature, and

whilst he said to the husband, "You be damned," push his wife over? Could I, with these recollections fresh in my mind, doubt for an instant that Marie would be acted upon by the same considerations? I hurried back to my room, put on what I conceived to be sufficient, a second time rushed across the corridor and entered Marie's room. She was sitting by the fire reading, in a light-blue dressinggown, and her hair "Mais, monsieur," she not unnaturally exclaimed, "what is it?" I was so bewildered that I declare positively I quite forgot what on earth it was that was the cause of my being there. Marie's bare feet were resting upon the fender-I should add in slippers-mules si mignonnes

and I saw about two inches of them. I would willingly have given all I have in possession or in reversion (I am a younger son), to have seen one inch more.

66

Mais, monsieur, you are quite pale-tell me then why?"

I recollected myself and said, "You must come away directly, there is a fire-we have not a moment to lose."

Marie snatched up a shawl, and we went to the door. "It won't open," said Marie. It was too true: in my excitement I had closed the door so violently that the china handle had dropped upon the ground and broken sufficiently to prevent its being of any use. It was hopeless. Marie tried, and I tried. What a situation for a shy man! I turned round, and going down upon my knees

I looked carefully at the lock. I had hardly completed my investigations when I heard a voice. "Mon Dieu, it is my father," said Marie.

"Mon enfant, come and look at

the fire from my window. It is superb, magnificent, well worth looking at."

66

That is fortunate," said she; "you can go away quietly now:

thanks, notwithstanding, for the intention," and she went out, leaving me blotti behind the door.

"Marie," said her father, "you should not leave your door open," and he banged it! I never felt so humiliated in the whole course of my life. I who knew Boccaccio by heart, had studied every "beffa" in Bandello, remembered every situation from Brantôme to Prévost and to Crébillon fils, kept a prisoner by the want of a-door-handle. What on earth was I to do? There was no tree outside the window to enable me to descend like Maxime Odiot-then, too, it was hard courtyard below-there was no remedy, I must remain quiet. I have always been very unwilling to scrutinise a bedroom at all carefully. Pelham in Madame de Persigny's boudoir perhaps first impressed me with the notion-and Swift disgusted me completely; here, however, how different: "toutes les parties de ton habillement éparses présentent à mon imagination celles de toi-même, qu'elles recèlent." Here there was nothing-nothing which

"Bon soir, Marie," and she came back again into the room holding the outer handle in her hand. How I hated that bit of china-I should have liked to jump upon it. "Mademoiselle," I said, "pardon, at least."

"Mais, comment? qu'y a-t'il à pardonner?" I went up to her and-made her a profound bow, and went back to my own room.

Next morning Granville came to my room after breakfast, and I showed him what I had written, hoping that my deference to his opinion would please him. What then was my surprise to hear him say, "Worse and worse; my dear Stuart, this will never do-you have positively stolen the heading for your last chapter."

"But the world does not remember," I retorted-"witness Lady Deathshead.”

"No," said Granville, "but it hates to be told so."

I own I was not the better pleased because I felt that Granville was right, and yet I foresaw that I never should be able to tell my story properly. I really believe that I am the most sentimental person in the world. I am a martyr to associations. There is a particular kind of white petticoat which, after the lapse of -years, makes me frissonner whenever I see it. I am always in love. I began when I was only six, and from that time to the present I have always adored somebody. True, I am often disappointed, but still I am grateful that I have not Granville's fossilised heart. He must be the descendant of the man who in the beginning of the last century valued a woman at fourpence in hard cash and two pair of worsted stockings! Great heavens! worsted stockings.

"Remember, too," said Granville, "que nous avons changé tout cela.' A hundred years ago, perhaps, people might have made love to one another like that; but now it is, 'Je vous adore,' 'moi aussi ;' and then, 'Bien, marions nous,' or

adorons nous,' as the case may be and the circumstances allow. There is not the smallest necessity for these 'delicatesses de cœur.' Maintenant on serre la main, on ne l'effleure point, et va pour les pieds, on les presse sans que ça ne tirât à consequence." [I have not the smallest conception why Granville would talk in French, for he knows English a great deal better.] "By the by, did you dream this last episode?"

A dream, indeed! I had hardly recovered from the reality.

"You should have said," continued Granville, "it was far from being 'mensonge' (mon songe)." I groaned: (Granville's puns are occasionally hideous beyond all conception.) "Well, at any rate, if it is true, you will have the pleasure of talking it over.

"I should never think of alluding to such an occurrence."

"Why, that is the only advantage of a contretemps-the necessary embarrassment of the conversation afterwards the feeling that it must be talked about, and yet a determination on each side not to aborder the subject—and then, last of all, the second contretemps which it produces. Now, I will tell you what happened to me once. I was in a cathedral town, and

"Your materialism is dreadful, Granville; I really would rather not hear the story."

"Materialism is an

excellent

thing, and saves about twenty-five minutes in every half-hour. Why, don't you remember what your favourite poet said?—

'C'est mon avis qu'en somme un bas blanc bien tiré,

Sur une robe blanche un beau ruban moiré, Et des ongles bien nets, sont le bonheur suprême.

Un point, à ce sujet, m'étonne seulement : C'est qu'on n'a pas le temps d'y penser quand on aime.'

I shuddered.

to see.

Saturday, April 13.-Lille is not a very interesting town; its chief associations are Vauban * and some very good confectioner's shops. G. and I (G. stands for Granville bien entendu) went a long ramble all about, but we did not find much The cathedral is a fineish building, perpendicular (?) stylelooks outside like a larded guineafowl, and inside it has a very disagreeable smell I suppose the joint production of human beings and incense. The religion is Roman Catholic, something not very different from ritualism High Church, &c. &c.

These explorations, at least part of them, were made in a fiacre-a remarkably broken-down affair, on a par with the horse; and as we were going through one of the bystreets, off came one of the wheels, and we were deposited on the pavement, which, I should say, was uncommonly hard-about the hardest thing in pavements I ever met with. G. don't often swear, but on this particular occasion he electrified a fille-de-chambre and five gamins. It was not "peste," it was not "diable;"it was a worse word still. thought we were going to have a row, but we didn't, which was

*

I

satisfactory. From Lille we went on to Namur, as dull a journey as could be taken. The engine was a remarkable one, like an inverted extinguisher, and made a prodigious noise-the country flat as a pancake, except here and there a few rocks jutting out, which appear to be oolite. Granville says they are not. When we got to Namur, we went to see the citadel, which I believe is the only thing thought much of there; and I didn't think much of that. The governor showed us over, and was very civil; he asked me how far it was from London. I hadn't an idea, so I told him 3000 miles! He bowed, and looked as pleased as Punch! By the by, talking of Punch, we saw the most eccentric representation of that worthy in the streets. There was no Judy, and Punch seemed to be delivering an oration about the merits of Belgium in general, to the accompaniment of a cracked flute ! After we had finished the citadel, there was a church to be seen, so we went after that. There was an altar-piece by Berghem, and a sort of fresco by Both, and an old and very dirty sacristan with about a hundred keys.

After this, having had enough