_Hotel Continental, Royat._--Our party here (which, somehow or another, PULLER has contrived to get together and introduce to each other by the simple means of inducing M. HALL to give us a room to ourselves for a small _table-d'hote_ at the un-Royat-like hour of 7.30) consists of La Contessa CASANOVA, the English wife of an Italian merchant, the head of a large house of business in London--she is Marchesa or Contessa, I am not certain which, but PULLER styles her _Miladi_ and _Madame_. She is devoted to the serious Drama, and her pet subject is SALVINI in _Othello_. Her daughter, an elegant young English girl, lively, amusing, and with a bias in favour of the very lightest forms of theatrical entertainment. Then we have Madame METTERBRUN and her daughters, Anglo-Germans, thorough musicians, with WAGNER at their fingers' ends,--literally, as they are accomplished pianists. There is Mrs. DINDERLIN, who was here last year, and is taking the waters seriously, and who knows when to put in the right word at the right moment. Cousin JANE who is taking the waters still more seriously and who is an excellent listener: myself an impartial referee: and PULLER the Solicitor out for a holiday, who is alternately in the highest of spirits or the lowest depths of depression, according as the waters and weather affect him. Outside our party there are others whom I meet occasionally, consisting of the lady who finds fault with everything French, the gentleman who laughs at everything French, the grumbler whom nothing satisfies, the contented man who is pleased with everything, the man who after being here a day is intensely bored, the man who from the moment of his arrival is always studying Guide-books and _indicateurs_ to see what is the best and easiest way of getting away again: the patient who has come all the way here to see the Doctor and then refuses to do anything he tells him: the patient who has come to find out what on earth is the matter with him: the man who doctors himself, and two or three ladies of my acquaintance of whom I only catch occasional glimpses as they issue from Sedan-chairs or muffled up like the Turkish women, merely recognise me with their eyes, incline their heads and pass on their way with a little drinking-glass in their hands. To me Royat is an amusing place: it is certainly a pretty one, and its waters in most cases are decidedly of lasting benefit. What those "most cases" are, the patients themselves best know. * * * For expanse there is nothing like the sea, and for grandeur the snow mountains. Unless I go up to the Puy de Dome--which I do not mean to do, for I have been up there once, and never, never, never will go there again--I cannot see either. And even from the top of the Puy you can only discern the sea, or Mont Blanc, with a very good glass, on a very clear day. * * *