ng the Isle of Thanet with her
screams. The accident might have been a fearful one, if the pony had
not, thank Heaven, on getting to the bottom, pitched over the side;
breaking the shaft and cutting her hind legs, but in the most
extraordinary manner smashing her own way apart. She tumbled down, a
bundle of legs with her head tucked underneath, and left the chaise
standing on the bank! A Captain Devaynes and his wife were passing in
their carriage at the moment, saw the accident with no power of
preventing it, got Kate out, laid her on the grass, and behaved with
infinite kindness. All's well that ends well, and I think she's really
none the worse for the fright. John is in bed a good deal bruised, but
without any broken bone, and likely soon to come right; though for the
present plastered all over, and, like Squeers, a brown-paper parcel
chock-full of nothing but groans. The women generally have no sympathy
for him whatever; and the nurse says, with indignation, how could he go
and leave an unprotected female in the shay!"

Holiday incidents there were many, but none that need detain us. This
was really a summer idleness: for it was the interval between two of his
important undertakings, there was no periodical yet to make demands on
him, and only the task of finishing his _Haunted Man_ for Christmas lay
ahead. But he did even his nothings in a strenuous way, and on occasion
could make gallant fight against the elements themselves. He reported
himself, to my horror, thrice wet through on a single day, "dressed
four times," and finding all sorts of great things, brought out by the
rains, among the rocks on the sea-beach. He also sketched now and then
morsels of character for me, of which I will preserve one. "F is
philosophical, from sunrise to bedtime: chiefly in the French line,
about French women going mad, and in that state coming to their
husbands, and saying, 'Mon ami, je vous ai trompe. Voici les lettres de
mon amant!' Whereupon the husbands take the letters and think them waste
paper, and become extra-philosophical at finding that they really _were_
the lover's effusions: though what there is of philosophy in it all, or
anything but unwholesomeness, it is not easy to see." (A remark that it
might not be out of place to offer to Mr. Taine's notice.) "Likewise
about dark shades coming over our wedded Emmeline's face at parties; and
about F handing her to her carriage, and saying, 'May I come in, for a
lift homewar