o happy in his life," quoth he, "and never will
be again--wonders when he shall gee this white cliff again." But,
happily, in tumbles Aubrey with the big claw of a crab, which he
insists on Leonard's wearing next his heart as a souvenir of Mrs.
Gisborne; he is requited with an attempt to pinch his nose therewith,
And--

2.30. P. M. Weymouth.--The result was the upset of my ink, whereof you
see the remains; and our last moments were spent in reparations and
apologies. My two squires are in different plight from what they were
ten weeks ago, racing up hills that it then half killed them to come
down, and lingering wistfully on the top for last glimpses of our bay.
I am overwhelmed with their courtesies, and though each is lugging
about twenty pounds weight of stones, and Mab besides in Leonard's
pocket, I am seldom allowed to carry my own travelling bag. Hector has
been walking us about while his horses are resting after their twenty
miles, but we think the parade and pier soon seen, and are tantalized
by having no time for Portland Island, only contenting ourselves with
an inspection of shop fossils, which in company with Hector is a sort
of land of the "Three Wishes," or worse; for on my chancing to praise a
beautiful lump of Purbeck stone, stuck as full of paludinae as a
pudding with plums, but as big as my head and much heavier, he brought
out his purse at once; and when I told him he must either enchant it on
to my nose, or give me a negro slave as a means of transport, Leonard
so earnestly volunteered to be the bearer, that I was thankful for my
old rule against collecting curiosities that I do not find and carry
myself.

'August 30th. Maplewood.--I wonder whether these good children can be
happier, unless it may be when they receive you! How much they do make
of us! and what a goodly sight at their own table they are! They are
capable in themselves of making any place charming, though the man must
have been enterprising who sat down five-and-twenty years ago to
reclaim this park from irreclaimable down. I asked where were the
maples? and where was the wood? and was shown five stunted ones in a
cage to defend them from the sheep, the only things that thrive here,
except little white snails, with purple lines round their shells.
"There now, isn't it awfully bleak?" says Hector, with a certain
comical exultation. "How was a man ever to live here without her?"
And the best of it is, that Blanche thinks it beauti