the Dreary Domains of Desolation;" and what comfort was it--soaked, sodden, shivering, teeth chattering--to hear Martin proclaim, about once in five minutes, that the weather would clear up at the next turn of the road? The dreary day remains, cold and clammy, a fog-bank looming in my memory ever since. I believe I saw the _établissment_ of Eaux Chaudes; at least, there were big drenched houses, with shutters up, like dead-lights, and closed doors, and mud around them, like water round the ark. They looked like dismal county hospitals, with all the patients dead except the madmen, who might be enjoying the weather and the situation; or like gaols, with all the prisoners hung, and the turnkeys starved at the cell doors for lack of fees. I remember hearing a doleful voice, like that of Priam's curtain drawer, asking me if I wouldn't get out of the vehicle; but to move was hideous discomfort, bringing new wet surfaces into contact with the skin; so I croaked out, "No, no; back--back to the fire at Laruns." And so honest grey, all in a steam, splashed round through the mud; and back we went as we had come--rain, rain, rain, pitiless, hopeless rain--the fog hanging like a grey winding sheet above us--the zenith like a pall above that, leaden and drear, as on a Boothia Felix Christmas Day. There was nothing for it but the fireside. The very _douaniers_ had abandoned the street--the pigs had retreated--the donkeys brayed at intervals from their ground-floor parlours; and only the maniac geese sat on one leg, croaking, to be rained on, and the marble fountain, so pretty yester-evening in a gleam of sunshine, spouted away, bringing "coals to Newcastle," with an insane perseverance which it made me sad to contemplate. Dinner was ordered as soon as it could be got ready; we felt it was the last resource. I fortunately had a change of clothes. Martin had not; but he retired for awhile, and reappeared in a home-spun coat and trowsers, six inches too long for him, which he was fain to hold up, to the enormous triumph and delight of Jeanne. At length, then, that neat-handed Phillis announced dinner. "Stay a moment!" exclaimed Martin; "I am just going to see whether it is likely to clear up." Out he went into the mud, and returned with the announcement that it would be summer weather in five minutes; he knew, by some particular movement of the mist. But poor Martin's weather predictions had ceased to command any credit; and the peasants around the fire shrugged their shoulders and laughed. The dinner passed off like a funeral feast. I looked upon the Place--still a puddle, and every moment getting deeper. No songs--no jodling choruses to-night, maidens of Laruns!