D. calls a "visite,"--egad, they made a visite of it, sure enough, and are likely to stay some time there, for they are under some five feet of black mud, that has lain there since before the memory of man. This was n't the worst of it; for Mrs. D., not seeing very well in the dark, gave one of the passport people a box on the ear that she meant for poor Paddy, and we were hauled up before the police, and made pay thirty francs for "insulting the authorities," with something written on our passport, besides, describing my wife as a dangerous kind of woman, that ought to be looked after. Poor Mathews had a funny song, that ran,-- "If ever you travel, it must n't seem queer That you sometimes get rubs that you never get here." But, faith, it appears to me that we have fallen in with a most uncommon allowance of friction. Perhaps it's all for the best; and by a little roughing at first, we'll the sooner accustom ourselves to our new position. You know that I never thought much of this notion of coming abroad, but Mrs. D. was full of it, and gave me neither peace nor ease till I consented. To be sure, if it only realizes the half of what she says, it's a good speculation,--great economy, tip-top education for Tom and the girls, elegant society without expense, fine climate, and wine for the price of the bottles. I 'm sorry to leave Dodsborough. I got into a way of living there that suited me; and even in the few days I spent in London I was missing my morning's walk round the big turnip-field, and my little gossip with Joe Moone. Poor Joe! don't let him want while I 'm away, and be sure to give him his turf off our own bog. We won't be able to drain the Lough meadows this year, for we 'll want every sixpence we can lay our hands on for the start. Mrs. D. says, "'T is the way you begin abroad decides everything;" and, faith, our opening, up to this, has not been too prosperous.