ned Lavinia, with a sigh of relief, while Matilda looked
over a barricade of sketch-books bristling with paint-brushes, and added
anxiously,--

'If you _could_ suggest how I am to work this miracle, you will be a
public benefactor.'

'Behold the amendment I propose,' began Amanda, perching herself on one
of the arks. 'We have decided to travel slowly and comfortably through
France to Switzerland, stopping where we like, and staying as long as we
please at any place we fancy, being as free as air, and having all the
world before us where to choose, as it were.'

'The route you have laid out is a charming one, and I don't see how you
can improve it,' said Lavinia, who, though she was supposed to be the
matron, guide, and protector of the younger girls, was in reality
nothing but a dummy, used for Mrs. Grundy's sake, and let the girls do
just as they pleased, only claiming the right to groan and moan as much
as she liked when neuralgia, her familiar demon, claimed her for its
own.

'One improvement remains to be made. Are these trunks a burden, a
vexation of spirit, a curse?' demanded Amanda, tapping one with her
carefully cherished finger-tips.

'They are! they are!' groaned the others, regarding the monsters with
abhorrence.

'Then let us get rid of them, and set out with no luggage but a few
necessaries in a shawl-strap.'

'We will! we will!' returned the chorus.

'Shall we burn up our rubbish, or give it away?' asked Lavinia, who
liked energetic measures, and was ready to cast her garments to the four
winds of heaven, to save herself from the agonies of packing.

'_I_ shall never give up my pictures, nor my boots!' cried Matilda,
gathering her idols to her breast in a promiscuous heap.

'Be calm and listen,' returned the scintillator. 'Pack away all but the
merest necessaries, and we will send the trunk by express to Lyons. Then
with our travelling-bags and bundles, we can follow at our leisure.'

''Tis well! 'tis well!' replied the chorus, and they all returned to
their packing, which was performed in the most characteristic manner.

Amanda never seemed to have any clothes, yet was always well and
appropriately dressed; so it did not take her long to lay a few
garments, a book or two, a box of Roman-coin lockets, scarabae brooches,
and cinque-cento rings, likewise a swell hat and habit, into her vast
trunk; then lock and label it in the most business-like and thorough
manner.

Matilda found much diffi