“In our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,” Who can fathom the depths of thy soul? My sympathies from that night were with Melville, and I determined any influence I might have over Evelyn, should be exerted in favor of this, her true knight. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII. +FOREIGN TRAVEL+ ON the very loveliest of summer mornings, in the leafy month of June, Evelyn and myself, with the little fair-haired Ella, a maid, and a courier, started by the mail train for Dover. We were in the highest spirits, and anticipated much enjoyment in our projected journey. If a shade of tender melancholy lingered on the cheek of my fair companion, at the thought of her recent parting with a handsome and devoted admirer, it was soon dissipated as she called to mind his promise to join us, either at Venice or Florence, as soon as his military duties would permit him to take advantage of the usual autumn regimental leave. Our journey through “_la belle France_” was a hurried one. Our first halt was at Vevay, on the Lake of Geneva. Here we remained a few days, enjoying the view of the snow-capped mountains—Mont Blanc, like a hoary giant, faintly discerned in the distance. We made a pilgrimage to “Sweet Clarens,” rendered far more interesting through the graphic pen of our own immortal Byron, than as the abode of that disgusting sensualist—Rousseau, whose writings, (such of them, at least, as I have seen), I utterly abhor. I may be permitted here to remark, that, apart from its exquisite poetic beauties, we found Childe Harold the best and truest of descriptive guide books, for a work of true genius in poetry as in music, though capable of satisfying the highest intellectual requirements, is also adapted to interest and please the million. At Vevay we engaged a vetturino to take us over the magnificent Simplon pass to the head of the Lake of Como, whence we intended crossing in the steamer to the town, which takes its name from the lake, and is situated at its lower extremity. The pass of the Simplon presents to the traveller every variety of scenery, from the verdant and flowery valley, with its murmuring brook and rich pasturage, to the rugged and barren heights, where eternal snow usurps the place of vegetation, and the ear is constantly assailed by the crash of the avalanche, as it leaps from crag to crag and is finally lost in some unfathomable abyss, into whose depths the sun never penetrates.