dinner.  So afraid I was of the fatigue for Wiedeman!  But between the unfinished railroad and the diligence, there’s a complication of risks of losing places just now, and we were forced to go the whole way in a breath or to hazard being three or four days on the road.  So we took the coupe and resigned ourselves, and poor little babe slept at night and laughed in the day, and came into Paris as fresh in spirit as if just alighted from the morning star, screaming out with delight at the shops!  Think of that child!  Upon the whole he has enjoyed our journey as much as any one of us, observing and admiring; though Robert and Wilson will have it that some of his admiration of the scenery we passed through was pure affectation and acted out to copy ours.  He cried out, clasping his hands, that the mountains were ’due’—­meaning a great number.  His love of beautiful buildings, of churches especially, no one can doubt about.  When first he saw St. Mark’s, he threw up his arms in wonder, and then, clasping them round Wilson’s neck (she was carrying him), he kissed her in an ecstasy of joy.  And that was after a long day’s journey, when most other children would have been tired and fretful.  But the sense of the beautiful is certainly very strong in him, little darling.  He can’t say the word ‘church’ yet, but when he sees one he begins to chant.  Oh, he’s a true Florentine in some things.

Well, now we are in Paris and have to forget the ‘belle chiese;’ we have beautiful shops instead, false teeth grinning at the corners of the streets, and disreputable prints, and fascinating hats and caps, and brilliant restaurants, and M. le President in a cocked hat and with a train of cavalry, passing like a rocket along the boulevards to an occasional yell from the Red.  Oh yes, and don’t mistake me! for I like it all extremely, it’s a splendid city—­a city in the country, as Venice is a city in the sea.  And I’m as much amused as Wiedeman, who stands in the street before the printshops (to Wilson’s great discomfort) and roars at the lions.  And I admire the bright green trees and gardens everywhere in the heart of the town.  Surely it is a most beautiful city!  And I like the restaurants more than is reasonable; dining a la carte, and mixing up one’s dinner with heaps of newspapers, and the ‘solution’ by Emile de Girardin, who suggests that the next President should be a tailor.  Moreover, we find apartments very cheap in comparison to what we feared, and we are in a comfortable quiet hotel, where it is possible, and not ruinous, to wait and look about one.

As to England—­oh England—­how I dread to think of it.  We talk of going over for a short time, but have not decided when; yet it will be soon perhaps—­it may.  If it were not for my precious Arabel, I would not go; because Robert’s family would come to him here, they say.  But to give up Arabel is impossible.  Henrietta is in Somersetshire; it is uncertain whether I shall see her, even in going, and she too might come to Paris this winter.  And you will come—­you promised, I think?...