o the carriage by her husband, would receive the homage of the whole
party, as they stood to let her pass. The count would then linger some
twenty minutes or so, and take his leave to wander for an hour about
the park, and afterwards to the theatre, where I used to see him in a
private box with his wife.

Such was the little party at the 'France' when I took up my residence
there in the month of May, and gradually one dropped off after another
as the summer wore on. The Germans went back to sauer kraut and kreutzer
whist; the secretary of legation was on leave; the wine-merchant was off
to St. Petersburg; the pianist was in the bureau he once directed--and
so on, leaving our party reduced to the count and madame, a stray
traveller, a deaf abbe, and myself.

The dog-days in a Continental city are, every one knows, stupid and
tiresome enough. Every one has taken his departure either to his
chateau, if he has one, or to the watering-places; the theatre has no
attraction, even if the heat permitted one to visit it; the streets are
empty, parched, and grass-grown; and except the arrival and departure
of that incessant locomotive, John Bull, there is no bustle or stir
anywhere. Hapless, indeed, is the condition then of the man who is
condemned from any accident to toil through this dreary season; to
wander about in solitude the places he has seen filled by pleasant
company; to behold the park and promenades given up to Flemish _bonnes_
or Norman nurses, where he was wont to glad his eye with the sight of
bright eyes and trim shapes, flitting past in all the tasty elegance of
Parisian toilette; to see the lazy _frotteur_ sleeping away his hours at
the _porte cochere_, which a month before thundered with the deep roll
of equipage coming and going. All this is very sad, and disposes one to
be dull and discontented too.

For what reason I was detained at Brussels it is unnecessary to inquire.
Some delay in remittances, if I remember aright, had its share in the
cause. Who ever travelled without having cursed his banker or his agent
or his uncle or his guardian, or somebody, in short, who had a deal of
money belonging to him in his hands, and would not send it forward? In
all my long experience of travelling and travellers, I don't remember
meeting with one person, who, if it were not for such mischances, would
not have been amply supplied with cash. Some with a knowing wink throw
the blame on the 'Governor'; others, more openly