e whisked
along.

"So much the better, if I'm a rock ahead to warn her off a marriage with
the governor," rejoined the Major, smoking, as he always did, under the
officials' very noses. "I hope I sha'n't come across her again. If the
Tressillian and I meet, we shall be about as amicable as a rat and a
beagle. Take a weed, Fred. I do it on principle to resist unjust
regulations. Why shouldn't we take a pipe if we like? A man whose
olfactory nerves are so badly organized as to dislike Cavendish is too
great a muff to be considered."

As ill luck would have it, when we crossed to Dover, who should cross,
too, but the Tressillian and her party--aunt, cousins, maid, courier,
and pug. Telfer wouldn't see them, but got on the poop, as far away as
ever he could from the spot where Violet sat nursing her dog and
reading a novel, provokingly calm and comfortable to the envious eyes of
all the _malades_ around her.

"Good Heavens!" said he, "was anything ever so provoking? Just because
that girl's my particular aversion, she must haunt me like this. If
she'd been anybody I wanted to meet, I should never have caught a
glimpse of her. For mercy's sake, Vane, if you see a black hat and white
feather anywhere again, tell me, and we'll change the route
immediately."

Change the route we did, for, going on board the steamer at Duesseldorf,
there, on the deck, stood the Tressillian. Telfer turned sharp on his
heel, and went back as he came. "I'll be shot if I go down the Rhine
with her. Let's cut across into France." Cut across we did, but we
stopped at Brussels on our way; and when at last we caught sight of the
tops of the fir-trees around Essellau, Telfer took a long whiff at his
pipe with an air of contentment. "I should say we're safe now. She'll
hardly come pig-sticking into the middle of Swabia."

II.

VIOLET TRESSILLIAN.

Essellau was a very jolly place, with thick woods round it, and the
river Beersbad running in sight; and his pretty sister, the Comtesse
Virginie, his good wines, and good sport, made Von Edenburgh's a
pleasant house to visit at. Marc himself, who is in the Austrian service
(he was winged at Montebello the other day by a rascally Zouave, but he
paid him off for it, as I hope his countrymen will eventually pay off
all the Bonapartists for their _galimatias_)--Marc himself was a jolly
fellow, a good host, a keen shot, and a capital ecarte player, and made
us enjoy ourselves at Essellau as he had