ues asunder.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

There never was a finer morning in the world than that appointed for the
review. It was just the end of May, and all the scenery, even in the
very suburbs of the great city, was brilliant with all the
characteristic beauty of an English landscape.

The fine horse-chestnut trees and the thick hawthorn hedges were all in
full bloom, and the air was perfectly scented with perfumes from the
innumerable nursery grounds which hedge in that side of London with a
belt of flowers.

The parks, and the suburban roads were crowded with neatly-dressed,
modest-looking nurses and nursery-maids, leading whole troops of
rosy-cheeked, brown-curled, merry boys and girls to enjoy the fresh
morning air; and Auguste was never tired, as we drove along, of admiring
everything that met his eyes in quick succession.

The trees, the flowery hedges, the gay parterres, the glimpses of the
noble Thames white with the sails of innumerable craft, the beautiful
villas with their small highly cultivated pleasure-grounds, the pretty
nursery-maids, and happy English children, all came in for a share of
his rapturous admiration; and so vivacious and original were his
comments on all that he saw, that he in some sort communicated the
infection of his merry humour to us also, and we were all as gay and
joyous as the season and the scene.

When we came to the ground destined for the review, my brother was
silent, and I saw his cheek turn pale for a moment; but his eye
brightened and flashed as it ran over the splendid lines of the cavalry,
which, at the moment we came upon the ground, were parading past the
royal personage in honour of whom the review was given, and who was on
horseback, by the side of a somewhat slender elderly gentleman, dressed
in the uniform of a _field-marshal_, whose eagle eye and aquiline nose
announced him, at a glance, the _vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre_.

"_Magnifique, mais c'est vraiment magnifique_," muttered my brother to
himself, as the superb life-guards swept along with their polished steel
helmets and breast-plates glittering like silver in the sunshine, and
their plumes and guidons flashing and twinkling in the breeze. "_Dieu
de dieu! qu'ils sont geants les cavaliers, qu'ils sont colossaux les
chevaux. Et les allures si lestes, si gracieuses, comme s'ils n'etaient
que des juments. Mais c'est un spectacle magnifique_!"

A moment afterwards, a regiment of lancers passed at