ze the lesson, though the
price of it is hard.

"This morning," I said to B----, "will terminate our suspense." I felt
cheerful in spite of myself; and this was like a presentiment of coming
good luck. To pass the time till the mail arrived we climbed to the
chapel of _Fourvieres_, whose walls are covered with votive offerings to
a miraculous picture of the Virgin. But at the precise hour we were at
the Post Office. What an intensity of suspense can be felt in that
minute, while the clerk is looking over the letters! And what a
lightning-like shock of joy when it _did_ come, and was opened with
eager, trembling hands, revealing the relief we had almost despaired of!
The city did not seem less gloomy, for that was impossible, but the
faces of the crowd which had appeared cold and suspicious, were now kind
and cheerful. we came home to our lodgings with changed feelings, and
Madame Ferrand must have seen the joy in our faces, for she greeted us
with an unusual smile.

We leave to-morrow morning for Chalons. I do not feel disposed to
describe Lyons particularly, although I have become intimately
acquainted with every part of it, from _Presqu' isle Perrache to Croix
Rousse_. I know the contents of every shop in the Bazaar, and the
passage of the Hotel Dieu--the title of every volume in the bookstores
in the Place Belcour--and the countenance of every boot-block and
apple-woman on the Quais on both sides of the river. I have walked up
the Saone to _Pierre Seise_--down the Rhone to his muddy
marriage--climbed the Heights of _Fourvieres_, and promenaded in the
_Cours Napoleon_! Why, men have been presented with the freedom of
cities, when they have had far less cause for such an honor than this!

CHAPTER XLIV.

TRAVELING IN BURGUNDY--THE MISERIES OF A COUNTRY DILIGENCE.

_Paris, Feb. 6, 1840._--Every letter of the date is traced with an
emotion of joy, for our dreary journey is over. There was a magic in the
name that revived us during a long journey, and now the thought that it
is all over--that these walls which enclose us, stand in the heart of
the gay city--seems almost too joyful to be true. Yesterday I marked
with the whitest chalk, on the blackest of all tablets to make the
contrast greater, for I got out of the cramped diligence at the Barriere
de Charenton, and saw before me in the morning twilight, the immense
groy mass of Paris. I forgot my numbed and stiffened frame, and every
other of the thousand di