ul underclothing are spread out before all
those men; silk and satin frocks come next; numberless dressing-table
ornaments in silver and gold, and little bottles by the dozen; boots and
shoes and books follow, while Madame begins to weep and then changes to
screaming and raving. She is a Frenchwoman who has been staying in
England, but she did not escape any more than an English-woman. How she
will ever manage to get all her finery stuffed back into those boxes
without ruining it I don't know, and we haven't time to wait to see.

The platform is very low and the train looks in consequence much larger
than an English one, as we have to climb up into it almost from the
ground. It is a corridor train, and the first classes are lined with a
kind of drab cloth, which does not seem so suitable for railway work as
our dark blue colour. The guard sets us off with a little "birr-r-r"
like a toy cock crowing. When we move out of the station at last we find
ourselves going at a snail's pace along a street, and at once we catch
our breath with interest--it is all so strange! Never will you forget
that first glimpse of a foreign land! The very air is different, with a
sharp pleasant smell of wood-smoke in it. Some people say that every
foreign country has its own smell and that they would know where they
were with their eyes shut! This must be an exaggeration, still there is
something in it!

As the train goes slowly forward a clanging bell rings on the engine to
warn the people to get off the lines, which are not fenced in in any
way. On every side you see neat little women wearing no hats, with their
hair done up in top-knots; they are out marketing, and most of them
carry immense baskets or string-bags stuffed with cabbages and carrots
and other vegetables. The children are nearly all dark, with brown skins
and bright black eyes, and they look thin but full of life. The boys
wear a long pinafore or overall of cheap black stuff, and even the
biggest go about in short socks, showing their bare legs, which looks
rather babyish to us. The sun is shining brilliantly, and on most of the
pavements there are chairs set out around small tables where men in
perfectly amazingly baggy corduroy trousers and blue blouses sit and
drink variously coloured drinks. A little boy who was too near the line
is caught away by his agitated mother, who pours out over him a babble
of words, and the child, laughing roguishly, answers her as volubly. Not
o