This luminary, rising in a town about seven miles distant from us, described at first a very erratic orbit amidst the contiguous villages before it finally struck into the high-road of enlightenment, and thence performed its journey, in the full eyes of man, at the majestic pace of six miles and a half an hour. My father, with his pockets full of books, and a quarto of "Gebelin on the Primitive World" for light reading under his arm; my mother, with a little basket, containing sandwiches and biscuits of her own baking; Mrs Primmins, with a new umbrella, purchased for the occasion, and a bird-cage containing a canary, endeared to her not more by song than age, and a severe pip through which she had successfully nursed it--and I myself, waited at the gates to welcome the celestial visitor. The gardener, with a wheel-barrow full of boxes and portmanteaus, stood a little in the van; and the footman, who was to follow when lodgings had been found, had gone to a rising eminence to watch the dawning of the expected planet, and apprise us of its approach by the concerted signal of a handkerchief fixed to a stick. The quaint old house looked at us mournfully from all its deserted windows. The litter before its threshold, and in its open hall; wisps of straw or hay that had been used for packing; baskets and boxes that had been examined and rejected; others, corded and piled, reserved to follow with the footman: and the two heated and hurried serving-women left behind standing half-way between house and garden-gate, whispering to each other, and looking as if they had not slept for weeks--gave to a scene, usually so trim and orderly, an aspect of pathetic abandonment and desolation. The genius of the place seemed to reproach us. I felt the omens were against us, and turned my earnest gaze from the haunts behind with a sigh, as the coach now drew up in all its grandeur. An important personage, who, despite the heat of the day, was enveloped in a vast superfluity of belcher, in the midst of which galloped a gilt fox, and who rejoiced in the name of "guard," descended to inform us politely that only three places, two inside and one out, were at our disposal, the rest having been pre-engaged a fortnight before our orders were received.