me next mornings
of life!--strange leaves in that book of our daily existence, now dark
and black-lettered, now bright in all the glories of golden tracery!
For so is it, each day is a fresh page to be written "with chalk or
charcoal," as it may be.

Two travelling-carriages took their way from Florence on that
morning,--one for Bologna, with Mr. Stocmar and Clara; the other for
Rome, with the Heathcotes, Captain Holmes having his place in the
rumble. Old soldier that he was, he liked the open-air seat, where he
could smoke his cigar and see the country. Of all those who journeyed
in either, none could vie with him in the air of easy enjoyment that he
wore; and even the smart Swiss maid at his side, though she might have
preferred a younger companion, was fain to own, in her own peculiar
English, that he was full of little bounties (bontes) in her regard. And
when they halted to bait, he was so amiable and full of attentions to
every one, exerting the very smallest vocabulary to provide all that
was needed; never abashed by failure or provoked by ridicule; always
good-tempered, always gay. It was better than colchicum to Sir William
to see the little fat man washing the salad himself at the fountain,
surrounded by all the laughing damsels of the hostel, who jeered him on
every stage of his performance; and even May, whose eyes were red with
crying after Clara, had to laugh at the disasters of his cookery and the
blunders of his Italian. And then he gossiped about with landlords and
postboys, till he knew of every one who had come or was coming; what
carriages, full of Russian Princes, could not get forward for want
of horses, and what vetturinos, full of English, had been robbed of
everything. He had the latest intelligence about Garibaldi, and the
names of the last six Sicilian Dukes shot by the King of Naples. Was
he not up, too, in his John Murray, which he read whenever Mademoiselle
Virginia was asleep, and sold out in retail at every change of
post-horses?

Is it not strange that this is exactly the sort of person one needs on
a journey, and yet is only by the merest accident to be chanced upon?
We never forget the courier, nor the valet, nor the soubrette, but
the really invaluable creature,--the man who learns the name of every
village, the value of all coinage, the spot that yields good wine, the
town where the peaches are fullest of flavor, or the roses richest in
perfume; we leave him to be picked up at haz