taken to her. But she passed out of my head after a while; and it was only now and then that I recollected her existence, and thought how pleasant it would be if we happened to meet again some day. CHAPTER III. A WIDOW'S MANŒUVRES. The life of travelling companion to my father being very much to my taste, I was naturally disgusted at its coming to a conclusion. This happened when I was about fifteen, and was caused by an event to which I objected strongly, and which was destined to have a most important effect on my subsequent existence. We were making a tour through Holland and Friesland, and, when at Amsterdam, happened to make acquaintance with a Mrs. Grove, a widow, accompanied by two daughters, who were respectively two and three years older than me. I did not take to her at all, and thought she seemed a flattering, lying, pushing, cringing, vulgar individual; but having carelessly thought that much of her, I dismissed her from my mind as a person with whom I had nothing to do, and whose character was quite immaterial to me--little thinking what a _bête noire_ she was to prove to me afterwards! She was on the look-out for a successor for the deceased Mr. Grove; and as my father appeared to her to be a very suitable person for the vacancy, she began at once to lay siege to his affections. She did not, however, wish to show her hand too plainly at first, by attaching herself to us so openly as to make it obvious that she meant to pursue us from place to place. Therefore, the plan she adopted was, to discover, by apparently careless questioning, whither Sir Anthony's wayward fancy was likely to take him next; having done this, she would direct her own course to the same district, go to some principal town in it which we should be pretty sure to visit sooner or later, wait for us there, and then pretend to be greatly surprised when we arrived, and to consider the meeting a purely accidental one. For instance, my father intended to go from Friesland to Münster, which he considered would be good headquarters whence to go to the neighbouring town of Soest, where he wanted to see the _Wiesen Kirche_, and other specimens of Gothic architecture. He had spoken of this in Mrs. Grove's presence, so that she was quite aware of his intentions in the matter. Consequently there occurred what she called a curious coincidence, as she also was moved by the self-same thirst for archaeological studies at that particular time; and thus when we reached Münster from Winschoten, we found her already installed in the former city before us. At Cassel and at Frankfort did we again fall in with her; and on the very first night of our being at Heidelberg she and her daughters joined us under the walls of the old castle, as we sauntered about in the dark and admired the brilliant fireflies.