The happy pair had determined to test the endurance of their felicity by starting for the Rhine, which popular river it was their intention to go up as far as it was go-up-able, then proceed to Switzerland, do that land of musical cows and icy mountains thoroughly, and finally take up their quarters at Florence, where Leicester had succeeded in obtaining a diplomatic appointment. A letter had been received from them dated Coblentz, wherein it appeared their newfound happiness had stood the voyage better than might have been expected; a fact mainly attributable to their having had an unusually calm passage. Laura considered the Rhine scenery exquisite; Charley thought it all very well for a change; but for a constancy, he must confess he preferred the Serpentine. He was disgusted with the German students, whom he stigmatised as “awful tigers,” wondered why the women wore short petticoats if they hadn’t better ankles to show, complained bitterly of the intense stupidity of the natives for not understanding either French or English, and wound up by a long, violent sentence quite unconnected with all that had gone before it, setting forth his unalterable conviction that Laura was an angel, which unscriptural assertion he reiterated four times in as many lines. A change had taken place in Rose Arundel, and Lewis, as he gazed with affection on her calm, pensive brow, and marked the earnest, thoughtful expression of her soft, grey eyes, felt that she was indeed altered: he had left her little more than a child, he found her a woman in the best and fullest sense of the expression. Reader, do you know all that phrase implies? do you understand what is meant by a woman in the true and fullest sense of the term? “Eh? I should rather think I did, too, just a _very_ little,” replies Ensign Downylip, winking at society at large; “know what a woman is? yes, I consider that good, rather.” “And what, oh! most exquisite juvenile, may be your definition of woman as she should be?” The Ensign strokes his upper lip where that confounded moustache is so very “lang a comin’,” rubs his nose to arouse his intellect, which he fails to do because that faculty is not asleep but wanting, and replies-- “Ar--well, to begin with: woman is of course a decidedly inferiar animal, but--ar--take the best specimen of the class, and you’ll find it vewy pwitty, picquante, devoted to polking, light in hand, clean about the pasterns, something like Fanny Elsler, with a dash of Lady--to give it style (I can’t stand vulgawity), decidedly fast (I hate your cart-horsey gals)! plenty of bustle to make it look spicy, ready to go the pace no end, and able properly to--ahem! appweciate ‘Yours truly’--ar--that’s about the time of day, eh, Mr. Author!”