The Beresfords stayed for a long time on the Continent that year. They went about to a great many places. They stayed at Baden till they were tired of the place. They went to Dresden, because Mrs. Beresford took a fancy to see the great San Sisto picture again. Then they went on to lovely old-world Prague, and to lively Vienna, and through the Tyrol to Milan, and then back again to the Italian lakes. Wherever they went they found people whom it was pleasant to know, whom they had met before on their many journeys--people of all countries and every tongue--noble people, beautiful people, clever people--the sort of society which can only be had by taking a great deal of trouble about it, and which, even with the greatest amount of trouble, many people miss entirely. This society included ambassadors and hill-farmers, poor curés, bishops, great statesmen, and professors who were passing rich on five shillings a day: nothing was too great or too small for them; and as wherever they went they had been before, so wherever they went they found friends. Sometimes it was only a chambermaid; but, nevertheless, there she was with a pleasant human smile. And, to tell the truth, James Beresford began to be very glad of the friendly chambermaids, and to calculate more where they were to be found than upon any other kind of society; for his wife had followed her usual practice of coming without a maid, and, as her strength flagged often, he was thankful, too thankful, to have someone who would be tender of her, and care for her as he himself was not always permitted to do, and as nobody else but a woman could. Oh, how he longed to get home, while he wandered about from one beautiful spot to another, hating the fine scenery, loathing and sickening at everything he had loved! Commonplace London and the square with its comforts would have pleased him a hundred times better than lovely Como or the wild glory of the mountains; but she would not hear of going home. One day, when the solemn English of a favourite Kammer Mädchen had roused him to the intolerable nature of the situation, he had tried, indeed, with all his might to move her to return. ‘Your goot laty,’ Gretchen had said, ‘is nod--well. I ton’t untershtand your goot laty. She would be bedder, mooch bedder at ‘ome, in Lonton.’ ‘I think you are right, Gretchen,’ he had said, and very humbly went in to try what he could do. ‘My love,’ he said, ‘I am beginning to get tired of the Tyrol. I should like to get home. The Societies are beginning. I see Huxley’s lectures start next week. I like to be there, you know, when all my friends are there. Shouldn’t you be pleased to get home?’