O Pandora! I have promised myself that I would take a great-grandchild of Barty's on a flying-machine from Marsfield to London and back in half an hour--and that great-grandchild can't well be born for several years--perhaps not for another twenty! And now, gentle reader, I've had my little say, and I'm a good deal better, thanks, and I'll try not to talk about myself any more. Except just to mention that in the summer of 1876 I contested East Rosherville in the Conservative interest and was successful--and owed my success to the canvassing of Barty and Leah, who had no politics of their own whatever, and would have canvassed for me just as conscientiously if I'd been a Radical, probably more so! For if Barty had permitted himself any politics at all, he would have been a red-hot Radical, I fear--and his wife would have followed suit. And so, perhaps, would I! Part Tenth "Je suis allé de bon matin Cueillir la violette, Et l'aubépine, et le jasmin, Pour célébrer ta fête. J'ai lié de ma propre main Bouton de rose et romarin Pour couronner ta blonde tête. "Mais de ta royale beauté Sois humble, je te prie. Ici tout meurt, la fleur, l'été, La jeunesse et la vie: Bientôt, bientôt ce jour sera, Ma belle, où l'on te portera Dans un linceul, pâle et flétrie." --A _Favorite Song of_ Mary Trevor's. That was a pleasant summer. First of all we went to Ste. Adresse, a suburb of Hâvre, where there is very good bathing--with rafts, _périssoires_, _pique-têtes_ to dive from--all those aquatic delights the French are so clever at inventing, and which make a "station balnéaire" so much more amusing than a mere British watering-place. We made a large party and bathed together every morning; and Barty and I taught the young ones to dive and do "la coupe" in the true orthodox form, with that free horizontal sweep of each alternate arm that gives it such distinction. It was very good fun to see those rosy boys and girls taking their "hussardes" neatly without a splash from the little platform at the top of the pole, and solemnly performing "la coupe" in the wake of their papa; one on his back. Right out to sea they went, I bringing up the rear--and the faithful Jean-Baptiste in attendance with his boat, and Leah inside it--her anxious eyes on the stretch to count those curly heads again and again. She was a good mathematician, and the tale always came right in the end; and home was reached at last, and no one a bit the worse for a good long swim in those well-aired, sunlit waves. Once we went on the top of the diligence to Étretat for the day, and there we talked of poor Bonzig and his first and last dip in the sea; and did "la coupe" in the waters that had been so fatal to him, poor fellow! Then we went by the steamer _Jean Bart_ to Trouville and Deauville, and up the Seine in a steam-launch to Rouen.