A dismal, gloomy night; the fine, penetrating rain, cold and disagreeable, that chills the very marrow, half hides the dimly burning gas-lights, and makes the streets utterly forlorn. The belated pedestrian bends his head to the blast and hurries along, eager to reach the cozy room where the gloom that pervades everything out of doors cannot penetrate. The cabs roll along the stony pavements with a dead, metallic sound that adds to the general dreariness. Everything and everybody is depressed. So it was when the train drew out of the dimly lighted station in Paris, and plunged into the unfathomable gloom and darkness of the country beyond. Wonderful invention--this railroad! and never so wonderful as at night. The mariner has his compass to guide him--the engine-driver has the rail. You go to sleep, or try to, in Paris; you wake in Switzerland. It makes reality of the magic carpet in the "Arabian Night's Tales." Though the coarse, stuffy compartment afforded no pleasure, the dull roar of the train as it sped on through the driving storm lulled the senses, gave our memory full sway; gradually [Illustration: COMPARTMENT IN A FRENCH CAR.] [Sidenote: A NIGHT ON THE RAIL.] the rain ceased its pattering against the window pane, the sky broke into a rosy blue, the brilliant sunlight streamed out in the night over the beautiful white city, and Paris, the frivolous empress of the world, held out to the mind its multitudinous attractions and unlimited pleasures. We saw again, reflected in the memory of the last six weeks, the long, wide boulevards, with their cheerful cafés filled with beautifully dressed women and leisure-loving men. There was the constant, ever-changing streams of humanity surging on to some end, each in his own way. There were the lights, the flowers, the gaities of the beautiful city, where the attainment of happiness and pleasure seems to be the chief aim of existence. The Louvre with its infinity of beauties, the Palais Royal with its bewildering jewels, the Place de Concorde with its historic memories, the Champ Elysées dazzling bright, with its arch-crowned vista of brilliant equipages, the Bois du Boulogne with its flower-lined walls and flower-lined lakes. There was rare relief, ever present to us, in all its glory, all its pleasure, all its gaiety. Days passed into weeks, and weeks into months, of perfect enjoyment that came to an end only when the guard in gruff tones hustled us out of the car at Macon, to change for the train going to Geneva. The transition was sudden and decidedly unpleasant.