rees there, the flowers of
which have trembled at the silver laugh of unhappy Antoinette. Sallow
Robespierre has rubbed against them. They were in their glory on that
July day when the mob of blouses tasted of the cellars of a King.

"But you can get in Murray all I can tell you of the wonderful place in
which it has been my fortune to find myself with my little wife. When,
on the morning after our arrival, I threw my bedroom window open, the
air was, I thought, the sweetest that had ever refreshed my nostrils.
The scene would have been perfect, had it not been for swarms of wasps
that dashed their great bodies, barred, as Carrie said, like grooms'
waistcoats (wasn't it clever of her?) into the room. If everything were
not flavoured with garlic (peaches included), I should say without
hesitation, that our _hote_ is THE _cordon bleu_ of the
country. Omelettes, my dear Mac, as light as syllabub; wild strawberries
frosted with the finest white sugar I ever put to my lips; coffee that
would make a Turk dance with delight; only, in each and all of these
dainties, there is just a pinch of garlic. But love makes light of these
little drawbacks. Carrie has made a wry face once or twice, it is true,
but only in the best of humours, and when the garlic was very strong
indeed.

"We had a rainy day yesterday: but we enjoyed it. We sat all the morning
at our window, gossiping and flirting, and watching the peasants
sauntering home from market, apparently unconscious that they were being
drenched. I had bought Carrie a huge sugar stick (_sucre de pomme_, I
think they call it), and she looked bewitchingly as she nibbled it, and
then coaxingly held it to my lips. You remember my old antipathy to
sweets; well, strange to say, I thought I had never tasted anything more
delicious than this sugar stick; but remember, it came direct from
Carrie's lips. Then we speculated on what our friends were doing at that
very moment, peeped into Clapham, and we made bad guesses enough, I have
no doubt. It ended by our agreeing that none of you were half so happy
as we were.

"In the evening the weather cleared a little, and we went out for a
stroll. A stroll through the streets of Fontainebleau is not one of the
pleasantest exploits in the world. I thought every moment that my wife
(delightful word, that thrills me to the finger tips as I write it)
would sprain an ankle, for the paving is simply a heap of round stones
thrown out of a cart; but she s