‘My wife was in ecstasy to be the Frow Vanderstradentendonk, with a fish-pond before the door, and twelve gods and goddesses in lead around it. To have a brace of asthmatic peacocks on a terrace, and a dropsical swan on an island, were strong fascinations--not to speak of the straight avenues leading nowhere, and the winds of heaven blowing everywhere; a house with a hundred and thirty windows and half as many doors, none of which would shut close; a garden, with no fruit but crab- apples; and a nursery, so called, because the playground of all the brats for a league round us. No matter, I had resolved to live abroad for a year or two, and one place would do just as well as another; at least, I should have quietness--that was something; there was no neighbourhood, no town, no highroad, no excuse for travelling acquaintances to drop in, or rambling tourists to bore one with letters of introduction. Thank God! there was neither a battlefield, a cathedral, a picture, nor a great living poet for ten miles on any side. ‘Here, thought I, I shall have that peace Piccadilly cannot give. Cincinnatus-like, I’ll plant my cabbages, feed my turkeys, let my beard grow, and nurse my rental. Solitude never bored me; I could bear anything but intrusive impertinence. So far did I carry this feeling, that on reading Robinson Crusoe I laid down the volume in disgust on the introduction of his man Friday! ‘It mattered little, therefore, that the _couleur de rose_ picture the lawyer had drawn of the château had little existence out of his own florid imagination; the quaint old building, with its worn tapestries and faded furniture, suited the habit of my soul, and I hugged myself often in the pleasant reflection that my London acquaintances would be puzzling their brains for my whereabouts, without the slightest clue to my detection. Now, had I settled in Florence, Frankfort, or Geneva, what a life I must have led! There is always some dear Mrs. Somebody going to live in your neighbourhood, who begs you ‘ll look out for a house for her--something very eligible; eighteen rooms well furnished; a southern aspect; in the best quarter; a garden indispensable; and all for some forty pounds a year--or some other dear friend who desires you ‘ll find a governess, with more accomplishments than Malibran and more learning than Porson, with the temper of five angels, and a “vow in heaven” to have no higher salary than a college bed-maker. Then there are the Thompsons passing through, whom you have taken care never to know before; but who fall upon you now as strangers in a foreign land, and take the “benefit” of the “Alien Act” in dinners at your house during their stay. I stop not to enumerate the crying wants of the more lately arrived resident, all of which are refreshed for your benefit; the recommendations to butlers who don’t cheat, to moral music-masters, grave dancing-masters, and doctors who never take fees--every infraction