On the ninth day, when I was eating my breakfast, just as I had finished my mutton-chop, and was going to attack the eggs, Cary, in a half-laughing way, said, "Well, pappy, do you never intend to take the air again? The weather is now delightful,--that second season they call the summer of St. Joseph." "Ain't I a prisoner?" said I. "I thought I had murdered somebody, and was sentenced for life to this chamber." "How can you be so silly!" said she. "You know perfectly well how these foreigners make a fuss about everything, and exaggerate every trifle into a mock importance. Now, we are not in Ireland--" "No," said I, "would to Heaven we were!" "Well, perhaps I might echo the prayer without doing any great violence to my sincerity; but as we are not there, nor can we change the venue--is n't that the phrase?--to our own country, what if we just were to make the best of it, and suffer this matter to take its course here?" "As how, Cary?" "Simply by dressing yourself, and driving into Como. Your case will be heard on any morning you present yourself; and I am so convinced that the whole affair will be settled in five minutes that I am quite impatient it should be over." I will not repeat all her arguments, some good and some bad, but every one of them dictated by that kind and affectionate spirit which, however her judgment incline, never deserts her. The end of it was, I got up, shaved, and dressed, and within an hour was skimming over the calm clear water towards the little city of Como. Cary was with me,--she would come,--she said she knew she did me good; and it was true: but the scene itself--those grand, great mountains; those leafy glens, opening to the glassy lake, waveless and still; that glorious reach of blue sky, spanning from peak to peak of those Alpine ridges--all soothed and calmed me; and in the midst of such gigantic elements, I could not help feeling shame that such a reptile as I should mar the influence of this picture on my heart by petty passions and little fractious discontents an worthy of a sick schoolboy.