We left Brussels yesterday morning in a Barouche and _three_, which is to take us to Paris. It holds us four in the inside and John on the box as nicely as we could wish and is perfectly easy. We suit each other as well in other respects as in the carriage. Donald is an excellent _compagnon de voyage_--full of liveliness, good humour, and curiosity, enjoying everything in the right way. He and Edward Leycester are my beaux, while E.S. does the business; which makes it much pleasanter to me than if I had only one gentleman with me. In short, we had not a difficulty till yesterday. We came by Waterloo again and picked up Lacoite to get what we could from him, and then to Charleroi, being told the road by Nivelles was impassable. The road to Charleroi was bad, and we did not arrive till 9, having had no eatable but biscuit and wine. Donald entered the hotel to enquire what we could have for dinner, and returned with the melancholy report that the woman had literally nothing, and did not know where any were to be procured, but that she would kill a hen and dress it if we liked! We sent Donald and Edward, as a forlorn hope, to see if there was another inn, and after a long search they found one, whereupon the postillion found out that he had no drag-chain and could not properly descend the _montagne._ However, after some arguments, and my descent from the carriage, and Donald and John walking on each side the wheels with large stones ready to place before them in case they were disposed to run too fast, we arrived at the Inn at the foot of the Hill, from which issued an old woman who might have sat for Gil Blas' or Caleb Williams' old woman. When she heard where we were going, she shook her head and said she did not like to be _un oiseau de mauvais augure_ but that the only road we could go was very nearly impassable. The people and the children in the street crowded round the carriage as if they had never seen one before, and, in short, we found that we had got into a _cul-de-sac._ [Illustration: PORTE DE HALLE, BRUSSELS, LEADING TO WATERLOO. _To face page 278._] However, our adventures for the night finished by the old woman giving us so good a dinner and so many good stories of herself and the Cossacks, that we did not regret having been round, especially now when we are safely landed at Valenciennes without either carriage or bones broke--over certainly the very worst road I ever saw. We shall be at Paris on Monday or Tuesday, I think. Adieu. _Rev. E. Stanley to his niece, Rianette Stanley._