ghting; and the more I throw it, the more it stands upon
its hind legs, rampant, and throws me.

Yes, on that bright cold morning when I left Peterboro', I felt that the
best thing I could do was to say that word that I would do anything in
an honest way to avoid saying, at one blow, and make off. I was so sorry
to leave you all! You can scarcely imagine what a chill and blank I felt
on that Monday evening at Rockingham. It was so sad to me, and
engendered a constraint so melancholy and peculiar, that I doubt if I
were ever much more out of sorts in my life. Next morning, when it was
light and sparkling out of doors, I felt more at home again. But when I
came in from seeing poor dear Watson's grave, Mrs. Watson asked me to go
up in the gallery, which I had last seen in the days of our merry play.
We went up, and walked into the very part he had made and was so fond
of, and she looked out of one window and I looked out of another, and
for the life of me I could not decide in my own heart whether I should
console or distress her by going and taking her hand, and saying
something of what was naturally in my mind. So I said nothing, and we
came out again, and on the whole perhaps it was best; for I have no
doubt we understood each other very well without speaking a word.

Sheffield was a tremendous success and an admirable audience. They made
me a present of table-cutlery after the reading was over; and I came
away by the mail-train within three-quarters of an hour, changing my
dress and getting on my wrappers partly in the fly, partly at the inn,
partly on the platform. When we got among the Lincolnshire fens it began
to snow. That changed to sleet, that changed to rain; the frost was all
gone as we neared London, and the mud has all come. At two or three
o'clock in the morning I stopped at Peterboro' again, and thought of you
all disconsolately. The lady in the refreshment-room was very hard upon
me, harder even than those fair enslavers usually are. She gave me a cup
of tea, as if I were a hyena and she my cruel keeper with a strong
dislike to me. I mingled my tears with it, and had a petrified bun of
enormous antiquity in miserable meekness.

It is clear to me that climates are gradually assimilating over a great
part of the world, and that in the most miserable part of our year there
is very little to choose between London and Paris, except that London is
not so muddy. I have never seen dirtier or worse weather than w