Pleasant was it, on that bright hot morning, to escape at last from Paris altogether. Sir Godfrey, indeed, remained at home to write his letters, with the purpose of riding out to meet them on their return: and Mr Thorpe, on horseback, with charge of the magic passports, was the sole cavalier; shrewdly overseen, doubtless, by the hard-eyed, rough-visaged, experienced Jackson, to whose sturdy driving there lay no perplexity about those great, straight, formal French roads, with staring guide-posts and swarms of Parisian people. Soon, in fact, does the grand road towards Versailles sweep away from sight of Paris in its wide basin, among avenues and closing woods. With no lanes, nor secluded cross-ways, save to towns, it was harder to leave behind the Parisian people; and they soon heard that Versailles was stripped of its glory, so far as they were concerned, since nothing was doing there that day; the king had gone to Marly, or Fontainebleau, instead of passing in state to the Assembly, as had been expected from the journals. Much to the relief, it must have been, of Lady Willoughby, who disliked crowds and pressures of people, with the bustle and the dust; and to whom foreign kings and queens had but a dim, half-chimerical reality, after all, compared with the accustomed Georges, whose power and royalty were interwoven with any thoughts she had of public life; yet she appeared as much vexed as it was possible for her to be, proposing still to go on and see the outside of the palace, the fountains, or the remaining courtiers, the “houses of parliament,” which perhaps might be worth the pains. But these Charles disdained till another day, when the king should have returned—being even set against the remotest view of the town, its very smoke or spires; and, out of his father’s presence, Charles was always, by some peculiar force of his, indirectly master. His sister Rose, though the expedition had been fondly planned, nor did his arguments seem worth answering, too well knew the issue not to be resigned; while her governess, referred to as a matter of course, expressed as duly an entire acquiescence in any arrangement most satisfactory to Lady Willoughby, preserving an intense calm, and seeming to observe the various objects as their course was changed, the leaves of the trees, the tops of palisades, the very hats of market-people, with strange elevation of countenance, and with an air of suffering which required her vinaigrette. Even Jackson, who had a great share of the selfishness of privileged old servants, and greatly consulted his own personal ease, ventured to console his mistress, turning round and touching his hat, to remark that it was a long drive after all, and they would have had to put up at the town to bait these Flanders beasts—he carefully abstained from calling them horses—_which_ it might cost a deal of trouble, as these French inns very likely had no stables; the inward satisfaction of