We cry your mercy, gayest of cities, with your bright Bois de Boulogne, and your splendid cafe’s! We do not much affect your shows, but we cannot dismiss forever the cheerful little room, cloud-environed almost, up to which we have so often toiled, after days of hard walking among the gaudy streets of the French capital.  One pleasant scene, at least, rises unbidden, as we recall the past.  It is a brisk, healthy morning, and we walk in the direction of the Tuileries.  Bending our steps toward the Palace, (it is yet early, and few loiterers are abroad in the leafy avenues,) we observe a group of three persons, not at all distinguished in their appearance, having a roystering good time in the Imperial Garden.  One of them is a little boy, with a chubby, laughing face, who shouts loudly to his father, a grave, thoughtful gentleman, who runs backwards, endeavoring to out-race his child.  The mother, a fair-haired woman, with her bonnet half loose in the wind, strives to attract the boy’s attention and win him to her side.  They all run and leap in the merry morning-air, and, as we watch them more nearly, we know them to be the royal family out larking before Paris is astir.  Play on, great Emperor, sweet lady, and careless boy-prince!  You have hung up a picture in our gallery of memory, very pleasant to look at, this cold night in America.  May you always be as happy as when you romped together in the garden!

The days that are fled still knock at the door and enter.  We are walking on the banks of the Esk, toward a friendly dwelling in Lasswade,—­Mavis Bush they call the pretty place at the foot of the hill.  A slight figure, clad in black, waits for us at the garden-gate, and bids us welcome in accents so kindly, that we, too, feel the magic influence of his low, sweet voice,—­an effect which Wordsworth described to us years before as eloquence set to music.  The face of our host is very pale, and, when he puts his thin arm within ours, we feel how frail a body may contain a spirit of fire.  We go into his modest abode and listen to his wonderful talk, wishing all the while that the hours were months, that we might linger there, spellbound, day and night, before the master of our English tongue.  He proposes a ramble across the meadows to Roslin Chapel, and on the way he discourses of the fascinating drug so painfully associated with his name in literature,—­of Christopher North, in whose companionship he delighted among the Lakes,—­of Elia, whom he recalled as the most lovable man among his friends, and whom he has well described elsewhere as a Diogenes with the heart of a Saint John.  In the dark evening he insists upon setting out with us on our return to Edinburgh.  When it grows late, and the mists are heavy on the mountains, we stand together, clasping hands of farewell in the dim road, the cold Scotch hills looming up all about us.  As the small figure of the English Opium-Eater glides away into the midnight distance, our eyes strain after him to catch one more glimpse.  The Esk roars, and we hear his footsteps no longer.