You see, dear friends, that I have reached my destination at last, and fairly established myself in this strange city. I parted from my kind companion, who in London had spent the whole week in one continued effort to aid me in every possible way, with real gratitude. I could not thank him, words seemed too meaningless.... I left London with the profoundest respect for the vast power of many kinds displayed there, and a grateful remembrance of a personal reception that had been so encouraging. It rained the whole way over. An English lady returning to Paris with her husband was very friendly. She promised to show me the best place to stay at in Calais, and said if I would travel with them in the cars she could give me much information about Paris, for the French made a point of cheating the English unmercifully, thinking they were immensely wealthy. We were notified of our approach to Calais by a strong smell of fish. It was quite dark and raining in torrents; I was very glad to have companions. We picked our way as well as we could over the stone pier, enclosed by walls on which stood a lighthouse glaring into the dark night. We stepped into the rooms where the passports are examined, and there the whiskered faces showed me I was amongst strangers, and the _Où allez-vous, madame?_ confirmed the fact. Next morning I stood for some time on the pier waiting for the Custom-house officer and watching the strange people. Market-women in their white caps (the common people wear no bonnet), groups of workmen in blue blouses, fishwomen of enormous muscular development, though short, returning from fishing laden with their nets, clad in a single petticoat scarcely reaching to the knee, little children with their school-books making sundry excursions on to the fishing-smacks by the way, and chattering French with all their might. At the Custom-house the search was very slight; they did not even see the cases which I had put at the back of a larger trunk, and I was only charged a couple of francs. We left Calais at nine o’clock, and the difference between France and England was apparent the whole way. The country was no flatter than between Liverpool and Birmingham, but badly drained and badly cultivated, with many peat bogs and dwarf willows bordering the watercourses. There were many villages built of light-coloured stone, but apparently not one brisk, thriving town. The whole way wooden fences instead of beautiful live hedges, women digging trenches and working in the peat bogs, and the railroad left in the rough, unfinished style of America, without the excuse of an immense young country. At the Custom-house in Paris, where they search the trunks for butter and cheese, I parted from