shionable,' coquettes with her own charms, and is
determined to make the world adore her, in spite of her slippers and her
shawl. Thus, nature, which gave the peacock a diadem on its head, and a
throne in its tail, has given it a pair of frightful legs. And on the
same charming principle, she has given Switzerland the finest of all
possible landscapes, and filled them with the most startling of all
possible physiognomies.

"But no more of theory. It has always made my head ache, and headachs
are, I know, contagious; so I spare you. Yet, have you a moment, among
your thousand and one avocations, to remember my father--or me? I beg
that I may not impede the march of armies, or shock the balance of
Europe, while I solicit you to give me a single line--no more; a mere
'annonce' of any thing that can tell me of your 'introuvable' friend
Lafontaine. This is _not_ for myself. The intelligence is required for a
sister of his whom I have lately met in this country--a showy
"citizeness" of Zurich, _embonpoint_ and matronly, married to one of the
portly burghers of the city, and exemplary in all the arts of
sheep-shearing, wool-spinning, and cheese-making; a mother, surrounded
_a la Francaise_ with a host of Orlandos, Hyacintes, Aristomenes, and
Apollos--pretty children, with the Frenchman developing in all its
gaudiness; the Switzer remaining behind, until it shall come forth in
cloudy brows, and a face stamped with money-making. Madame Spiegler is
still not beyond a waltz, and in the very whirl of one last night, she
turned to me and _implored_ that I should 'move heaven and earth,' as
she termed it--with her blue eyes thrown up to the chandelier, and her
remarkably pretty and well-_chausse'd_ feet still beating time to the
dance--to bring her disconsolate bosom tidings of her '_frere, si bien
aime, si malheureux_.' I promised, and she flew off instantly into the
very _core_ of a dance, consisting of at least a hundred couples.

"I have just returned from a drive along the shore of the Leman. The
recollection of Madame Spiegler, rolling and rushing through the waltz
like a dolphin through the waves; or like any thing caught in an
enormous whirlpool, sweeping round perpetually until it was swept out
of sight, had fevered me. The air here is certainly delicious. It has a
sense of life--a vivid, yet soft, freshness, that makes the mere act of
breathing it delightful. But I have mercy on you--not one word of
Clarens, not one word o