"Yes," admitted Lord George, with a sigh, "I went to Oxfordshire and renewed the attack, and the lady capitulated,--that is to say, conditionally on my behavior during absence. These letters are to show how I spend my time. I undertook to write them myself, but at this place I found I hadn't the literary gift. So I started for Paris in search of a secretary. By the way, you may be glad to hear that the lovely Amabel is soon to be Sir William Fountain's lady. He is the exact opposite of the lamented Bullcott. Alderby has married Miss Mallby, and revenges himself for her treatment of him before marriage, by keeping her green with jealousy." Dick sighed to think how long ago seemed his contact with the lives of the people thus recalled to his mind, and how completely he must have been by them forgotten. Such is the world! The next few weeks, passed in leisurely travel from one old town of France to another, were among the most uneventful and serenely pleasurable in Dick's life. From the noble forest, great rocks, and historic chateau of Fontainebleau, they went to Sens, with its winding streets and pleasant rivulets. There they took the water-coach, and were towed, by horses on the bank, up the Yonne to Joigny, which looks down on fertile meadows watered by the two rivers that join at the foot of its hillside. Continuing on the water-coach, with a cheerful company of merchants, lawyers, abbes, milliners, soldiers, fiddlers, women of different ages and degrees of virtue, and other people, they joined in the quadrilles in the cabin and on deck with a gaiety that effectually disguised Lord George's rank and nationality. At Auxerre they left the water-coach, and proceeded by a hired conveyance to Dijon, where they met several English, Irish, and Scotch gentry at the coffee-house, and were reminded of London by the garden called Vauxhall, hard by the ramparts. So they went through Burgundy, drinking the wine, exchanging civilities with the well-fed monks, and partaking everywhere of the fat of the land. By way of Auxonne, a town small but fortified, and Dole, with its Roman vestiges, they neared the Swiss frontier at Besancon, then noted for its university, its hospital, its large garrison containing among others the regiment of the King, its perpetual religious processions, its frequent suicides of lovers in the river Doube, and its soldiers' duels.