To really enjoy the Continent it is not necessary--at least, for people bred and brought up as we have been--to be very rich; on the contrary, many--ay, and the greatest--advantages of Continental travel are open to very small fortunes and very small ambitions. Scenery, climate, inexpensive acquaintanceship, galleries, works of art, public libraries, gardens, promenades, are all available. The Morrises have certainly much less to live on than we have, and yet they have travelled over every part of Europe, know all its cities well, and never found the cost of living considerable. You will smile when I tell you that the single secret for this is, not to cultivate English society. Once make up your mind abroad to live with the people of the country, French, German, and Italian,--and there is no class of these above the reach of well-bred English,--and you need neither shine in equipage nor excel in a cook. There is no pecuniary test of respectability abroad; partly because this vulgarity is the offspring of a commercial spirit, which is, of course, not the general characteristic, and partly from the fact that many of the highest names have been brought down to humble fortunes by the accidents of war and revolution, and poverty is, consequently, no evidence of deficient birth. Our gorgeous notions of hospitality are certainly very fine things, and well become great station and large fortune, but are ruinous when they are imitated by inferior means and humble incomes. Foreigners are quite above such vulgar mimicry; and nothing is more common to hear than the avowal, "I am too poor to do this; my fortune would not admit of that;" not uttered in a mock humility, or with the hope of a polite incredulity, but in all the unaffected simplicity with which one mentions a personal fact, to which no shame or disgrace attaches. You may imagine, then, how unimpressively fall upon the ear all those pompous announcements by which we travelling English herald our high and mighty notions; the palaces we are about to hire, the _fêtes_ we are going to give, and the other splendors we mean to indulge in. I have read and re-read that part of your letter wherein you speak of your wish to come and live abroad, so soon as the fruits of your life of labor will enable you. Oh, my dear kind governess, with what emotion the words filled me,--emotions very different from those you ever suspected they would call up; for I bethought me how often I and others must have added to that toilsome existence by our indolence, our carelessness, and our wilfulness. In a moment there rose before me the anxieties you must have suffered, the cares you must have endured, the hopes for those who threw all their burdens upon _you_, and left to _you_ the blame of _their_ shortcomings and the reproach of _their_ insufficiency.