o ward off the threatened danger. Where
to direct my steps was the difficult point to ascertain. Brighton,
Torquay, Cromer, Ilfracombe, had all been visited and revisited. At
either of these fashionable resorts I was certain to fall in with a
numerous acquaintance, whose persuasions would have induced me to depart
from that regularity of diet and of rest, so imperiously insisted upon
by my medical advisers. After much cogitation, I resolved upon a journey
up the Rhine, and to escape the ruthless winter of our northern clime in
the more genial land of history."

_A._ Land of history--I presume you mean Italy; but am I to go there?

_B._ No, you may recover, and come back again to skate upon the
Serpentine, if you please. You observe, Ansard, I have not made you a
fellow with L50 in his pocket, setting out to turn it into L300 by a
book of travels. I have avoided mention of Margate, Ramsgate,
Broadstairs, and all common watering-places; I have talked of physicians
in the plural; in short, no one who reads that paragraph, but will
suppose that you are a young man of rank and fortune, to whom money is
no object, and who spends hundreds to cure that which might be effected
by a little regularity, and a few doses of ipecacuanha.

_A._ I wish it were so. Nevertheless, I'll travel _en grand
seigneur_--that's more agreeable even in imagination, than being rumbled
in a "_diligence_."

_B._ And will produce more respect for your work, I can assure you. But
to proceed. Always, when you leave England, talk about _hospitality_.
The English like it. Have you no relations or friends in whose opinion
you wish to stand well? Public mention in print does wonders, especially
with a copy handsomely bound "from the author."

_A._ Really, Barnstaple, I do not know any one. My poor mother is in
Cumberland, and that is not _en route_. I have a maternal uncle of the
name of Forster, who lives on the road--a rich, old, miserly bachelor;
but I can't say much for his hospitality. I have called upon him twice,
and he has never even asked me to dinner.

_B._ Never mind. People like being praised for a virtue which they do
not possess--it may prove a legacy. Say, then, that you quitted the
hospitable roof of your worthy and excellent-hearted relation, Mr
Forster, and felt----

_A._ Felt how?

_B._ How--why you felt, as he wrung your hand, that there was a sudden
dissolution of the ties of kindred and affection.

_A._ There always has been i