And now to my small beer again, which will have more of a head to it henceforward. * * * * * Thus did I pursue my solitary way, like Bryant's Water-fowl, only with a less definite purpose before me--till at last there dawned for me an ever-memorable Saturday in June. I had again saved up enough money to carry my long longed-for journey to Paris into execution. The _Seine's_ boiler got up its steam, the _Seine's_ white awning was put up for me as well as others; and on a beautiful cloudless English morning I stood by the man at the wheel, and saw St. Paul's and London Bridge and the Tower fade out of sight; with what hope and joy I cannot describe. I almost forgot that I was me! And next morning (a beautiful French morning) how I exulted as I went up the Champs Elysees and passed under the familiar Arc de Triomphe on my way to the Rue de la Pompe, Passy, and heard all around the familiar tongue that I still knew so well, and rebreathed the long-lost and half-forgotten, but now keenly remembered, fragrance of the _genius loci_; that vague, light, indescribable, almost imperceptible scent of a place, that is so heavenly laden with the past for those who have lived there long ago--the most subtly intoxicating ether that can be! When I came to the meeting of the Rue de la Tour and the Rue de la Pompe, and, looking in at the grocer's shop at the corner, I recognized the handsome mustachioed groceress, Madame Liard (whose mustache twelve prosperous years had turned gray), I was almost faint with emotion. Had any youth been ever so moved by that face before? There, behind the window (which was now of plate-glass), and among splendid Napoleonic wares of a later day, were the same old India-rubber balls in colored net-work; the same quivering lumps of fresh paste in brown paper, that looked so cool and tempting; the same three-sou boxes of water-colors (now marked seventy-five centimes), of which I had consumed so many in the service of Mimsey Seraskier! I went in and bought one, and resmelt with delight the smell of all my by-gone dealings there, and received her familiar sounding-- "Merci, monsieur! faudrait-il autre chose?" as if it had been a blessing; but I was too shy to throw myself into her arms and tell her that I was the "lone, wandering, but not lost" Gogo Pasquier. She might have said-- "Eh bien, et apres?" The day had begun well. Like an epicure, I deliberated whether I should walk to the old gate in the Rue de la Pompe, and up the avenue and back to our old garden, or make my way round to the gap in the park hedge that we had worn of old by our frequent passage in and out, to and from the Bois de Boulogne. I chose the latter as, on the whole, the more promising in exquisite gradations of delight.