adjusted. Good townsfolk, who have basked
like lizards in the sun, on the green bench of
the hotel opposite, think it time that we
should mount; so, into the coupé, or, if there
be only room there for Mrs. Smith and my
daughter, I and the eldest boy will do well
enough on the banquette. En route! cries
the conductor, scaling the top storey of his
locomotive house, whereupon, amidst a volley
of strange nasal sounds, imprecatory and
invocatory from Cocher, sucli discharges from
his whip, as make you think the air filled
with exploding crackers, and the jingling of
horse-bells, you rock, sway, bound, and thunder
over the stones, flash round projecting
corners, dive through narrow streets—you
may shake hands with Brown en passant, as
he looks out from the entresol—and rattle
finally over a drawbridge to the open road.

And what a road it is—how undulatory,
varied, and full of sweet surprises! For
miles on either side, as you mount the hill,
wide fields of corn or flax ripple in the
breeze; gain the summit, and in the valley
brimmed with day as a cup with wine, a
village glitters, indistinct from its very brightness.
It is nothing to say, that the sun shines
through that screen of poplars; his beams
fall among them in flakes of light. Those are
ingots of gold that flash between their stems.
Can you not lift them, and be a Crœsus
Those red swelling pears that run along the
white cottage wall would fetch their price at
Covent Garden. Yet here the passing child
might pluck them from the lower boughs,
and further on they grow carelessly amid the
hedges. As we are stopping, I enter the
gleaming estaminet, and return to the coupé
with a plate laden with peaches. Wherever
we may dine this autumn, Mrs. Smith will
find none like them in London. There are
four, and the price is six sous. We are
moving again; there is the church, with the
white crosses that guard the graves and tell
you it is sweet to rest there. We are once
more on rising ground. Whither hurries
that grove that skirts the ravine on our left?
At its foot you catch glimpses of a blue deep
as the sky's. A moment of doubt, and an
instinct of the truth thrills through you. It
is the sea! Yes; for, as you diverge farther
inland, regard that long plain of golden sand,
the bed of an estuary, from which is gently
receding a tide so smooth that it should
break only upon gardens. Miles away, at
the verge of the estuary, and robed in a haze
from the sea, a fair tower-crowned hamlet
slopes gradually to the main. There it muses,
peaceful and pensive, remote, yet not all
estranged from the highways of life—a young
soul with the echoes of the world still in her
ear, whom some early sorrow has turned
towards the Infinite. Our business, however,
lies with that same stirring world, and
accordingly we lose sight of the recluse. The
next turning brings us in sight of a pension,
with its long range of jalousies and a mossy
garden wall, over which the laden pear-trees
bend and stretch arms towards their own
shadows in the river. Anon, the invariable
drawbridge, the roll of drums denoting the
garrisoned town; the narrow curved streets,
this time with the indented gables that
record the whilom invasion of the Spaniard;
the wide market-place, where petticoats and
white caps are surging like a sea of red, with
foam crests; a sharp turning to the left
through a modern street, and the Chemin-
de-fer!

We take our tickets, for what destination
I need not state. The ingenious reader may,
therefore, at his choice, fancy us discussing
our water-ices on the Boulevards, while the
epitomised life of civilisation passes in review;
or follow us into the Middle Ages in the
Jews' Quartier, at Frankfort; or find us in
the theatre of this same city of Göthe,
enjoying that great continental novelty, a
drama that is liked for its own sake, and
actors that can be endured without the bribe
of a pageant. He may detect us listening to
the band of the Kursaal at that delightful
wicked Baden-Baden, as my wife calls it; or
at the hotel of the Three Kings at Basle,
share our window, that looks out on the
great river street of the Rhine. We would
only require of him, when tired of speculation,
to suppose us again by the sea, and
vis-à-vis to Sussex.

" Well, we've had a happy six weeks of it,"
says Mrs. Smith, as she settles her bonnet for
the last evening walk before the great mirror
over the mantel-piece, where the gilt china
clock is assiduously ticking to a miscellaneous
and crowded company of gilt-china knights,
gilt-china shepherds, shepherdesses, and
fishermen, "A very happy six weeks,"
resumes the lady, about half-an-hour after,
as we quit the bazaar-like avenues which
connect the bathing establishment with the
town. " We've seen many things to admire
—some to touch us, and make us thoughtful,"
! she continues; " but, O George! there's one
delight, our greatest, yet to come."

By this time we have reached the pier,
whence the twinkling town-lamps to the left,
contrast with the moonlight, while the distant
headland glides softly into the sea. " Our
greatest delight! " Dear soul! she need not
' strain her eyes in gazing northwards from
the pier-end to tell me her meaning. Don't
I know the trembling eagerness with which
at every poste restante on our route she has
broken open Aunt Betsy's bulletins touching
the minds, bodies, and general estates of
Freddy, Caroline, and Harriet-Jane? And,
spite of those re-assuring documents, haven't I
marked many a lapse into anxious reverie,
which nothing but the desire to see me cheerful
could so soon have dispelled. "It will be
a great comfort when they are a little older,
and we can have them all with us," she
observes, watching fondly the lithe forms of
our two eldest girls and their brothers, as