den, with no fruit but
crab-apples; and a nursery, so called, because the playground of all the
brats for a league round us. No matter, I had resolved to live abroad
for a year or two, and one place would do just as well as another;
at least, I should have quietness--that was something; there was
no neighbourhood, no town, no highroad, no excuse for travelling
acquaintances to drop in, or rambling tourists to bore one with
letters of introduction. Thank God! there was neither a battlefield, a
cathedral, a picture, nor a great living poet for ten miles on any side.

'Here, thought I, I shall have that peace Piccadilly cannot give.
Cincinnatus-like, I'll plant my cabbages, feed my turkeys, let my
beard grow, and nurse my rental. Solitude never bored me; I could bear
anything but intrusive impertinence. So far did I carry this feeling,
that on reading Robinson Crusoe I laid down the volume in disgust on the
introduction of his man Friday!

'It mattered little, therefore, that the _couleur de rose_ picture the
lawyer had drawn of the chateau had little existence out of his own
florid imagination; the quaint old building, with its worn tapestries
and faded furniture, suited the habit of my soul, and I hugged myself
often in the pleasant reflection that my London acquaintances would be
puzzling their brains for my whereabouts, without the slightest clue
to my detection. Now, had I settled in' Florence, Frankfort, or Geneva,
what a life I must have led! There is always some dear Mrs. Somebody
going to live in your neighbourhood, who begs you 'll look out for a
house for her--something very eligible; eighteen rooms well furnished;
a southern aspect; in the best quarter; a garden indispensable; and all
for some forty pounds a year--or some other dear friend who desires you
'll find a governess, with more accomplishments than Malibran and more
learning than Porson, with the temper of five angels, and a "vow in
heaven" to have no higher salary than a college bed-maker. Then there
are the Thompsons passing through, whom you have taken care never to
know before; but who fall upon you now as strangers in a foreign land,
and take the "benefit" of the "Alien Act" in dinners at your house
during their stay. I stop not to enumerate the crying wants of the more
lately arrived resident, all of which are refreshed for your benefit;
the recommendations to butlers who don't cheat, to moral music-masters,
grave dancing-masters, and doctors wh