from paternal energy may be at an end, and that the modest means of pensioned age may render all such work impracticable? It is imperative that the places be seen, that the lions be killed and ticked off as difficulties done with and overcome. What may be the exact balance of advantage to any of them when the tour is over, neither Carry nor Fanny stops to inquire; but they put their heads together and determine that the thing must be arranged. They feel that they are right. "It is education," says Fanny, with her eyes glittering. "Home-staying youths have ever homely wits," says Sophie, thinking perhaps too much of her own advantage in point of years. "I will talk to papa in earnest," says Carry, with resolute mildness. She does talk to papa in earnest, conscious that she is thereby doing her duty; and thus the family goes abroad, because it is the thing to do. In the old days,--days, let us say, that are now some hundred and fifty years old,--young Englishmen used to travel for their education; but it entered into the minds of those who sent them that they should see something of the society of the countries which they visited. And in such travelling time was given for such intercourse. But with the ordinary English tourist, and especially with the ordinary English tourist family, there is no such attempt now, no hope of any such good fortune. Carry and Fanny mean to talk French boldly, but they intend to do so in railway carriages, at hotel dinners, and to the guides and waiters. No preparation is made for any attempt at social intercourse. Letters of introduction are not obtained, nor is there time allowed for any sojourn which would make an entrance into society possible. That does not come even into Fanny's programme, though Fanny is enthusiastic. Scenery, pictures, architecture, and a limited but minute geographical inquiry, are the points to which it is intended that attention shall be given. And of these much is learned. A true love of scenery is common to almost all who will take the trouble to seek it. I think that it is, at any rate, common to all English men and women. Of pictures the knowledge acquired is most frequently what may be called dead knowledge. Carry soon learns to know a Rubens from a Raphael, and almost learns to know a Titian from a Tintoretto. She stores her memory with facts as to individual pictures, remembers dates, and can tell you who was the teacher of whom. She is sometimes a little restless and mildly impatient during her labours in the galleries, and rejoices often when the hard day's work is done and the custodian bids her depart. But her toils have not been barren, and she enjoys after a fashion what she has learned. Architecture comes easier, as the time given to it is necessarily less, and the attention may be more vaguely applied. But, on that account, less is carried away, and the memories of the cathedral have dwindled to nothing, while the positions of the world-famous pictures are still remembered.