d, we came out and continued our ascent. Mrs. K.'s
curiosity, if not satisfied, was at least quenched, and she refused to
go farther. My aspirations still pointed upward. There was another
sixpence, another dizzy mount of dark, twisting stairs, with strength,
ambition, and even curiosity gradually left behind, and with only one
blind instinct remaining--to go on. There was a long, dingy passage,
through which ghostly forms were flitting; there were more stairs, with
twists and turns, forgotten now with other torments; there was the
mounting of half a dozen rickety wooden steps at last, for no object but
to descend shakily upon the other side, and then we found ourselves in a
little dark corner, peering over a dingy rail, with a great, dusky
object filling all the space below. And that was the bell! "Well, and
what of it?" I don't know; but we saw it!

CHAPTER V.

AWAY TO PARIS.

The wedding party.--The canals.--New
Haven.--Around the tea-table.--Separating the
sheep from the goats.--"Will it be a rough
passage?"--Gymnastic feats of the little
steamer.--O, what were officers to us?--"Who ever
invented earrings!"--Dieppe.--Fish-wives.--Train
for
Paris.--Fellow-passengers.--Rouen.--Babel.--Deliverance.

IT was the last week in May, and by no means the "merry, merry month of
May" had we found it. Not only was the sky weighed down with clouds, but
they dripped upon the earth continually, the sun showing his ghastly,
white, half-drowned face for a moment only to be swept from sight again
by the cloud waves. A friend was going to Paris. Would we shake the
drops from our garments, close our umbrellas, and go with him? We not
only would, we did. We gathered a lunch, packed our trunk, said our
adieus, and drove down to the station in the usual pouring rain, the
tearful accompaniment to all our movements. But one party besides our
own awaited the train upon the platform--a young man with the insignia
of bliss in the gloves of startling whiteness upon his hands, and a
middle-aged woman of seraphic expression of countenance, clad in robes
of spotless white, her feet encased in capacious white slippers. In
this airy costume, one hand grasping a huge bouquet devoid of color, the
other the arm of her companion, she paced back and forth, to the great
amusement of the laughing porters, casting upon us less fortunate ones,
who shivered meekly in