the nineteenth interested him, and he
could see Basil, Gabriel, and Father Felicien at every step.

The next week found them on a steamer bound for Havana and New York,
followed by friendly faces and good claret to the last, leaving three
baskets of champagne and about a ton of flowers out of account. For an
account of Havana, Matanzas, Spanish atrocities, Cuban exports, coolie
slavery, and the like topics, the reader is respectfully referred to the
book since published by Sir Robert,--"Eight Months in the United States,
Cuba, and Canada,"--a work pronounced in critical quarters "the best
book of travels in America ever published in England" (high praise,
surely), though it attracted less general attention than a very spicy,
entertaining volume by Mrs. Arundel Sykes, called "A Britisher among the
Yankees," (to quote from another English journal) said to contain "a not
very flattering picture of the life, society, and institutions of the
Great Republic, which must be a true one, since it is so universally
resented by the American press. People will cry out when they are hit,
as every one knows."

On arriving in New York our party went at once to Mr. Brown's, that
gentleman being established there for the winter and having urged them
to stay with him. Their idea was to sail for home almost immediately, as
soon as Sir Robert had seen his friend General Bludyer, with whom he had
some business and who was bringing out his two sons to establish them in
America. But an unexpected delay occurred. On the day after their
arrival, Mr. Heathcote ran up to his aunt's room to bid her good-by
before taking himself off to Baltimore,--he had made a full confession
to Sir Robert, and received much advice and counsel, together with a
qualified approval of his plans and hopes,--and he found Miss Noel still
in bed, although it was mid-day and she not the least punctual and
energetic of her sex. In reply to his playful reproaches she replied
that she was "feeling very, very queer," and he cheerfully assured her
that she "had best stop in bed a day or two and all would be well,"
after which he told her that he was not going back to England with the
party, and, with a further remark to the effect that she "was looking
awfully seedy," discovered that he was late for his train, was again
pleasantly sure that she would "be all right soon," and hurried off to
the station, well pleased to think that he should see Edith in a few
hours. It is not al