Sir Antony.—­In that “Pieta” of Van Dyck, in the Museum, have you ever looked at the yellow-robed angel, with the black scarf thrown over her wings and robe?  What a charming figure of grief and beauty!  What a pretty compassion it inspires!  It soothes and pleases me like a sweet rhythmic chant.  See how delicately the yellow robe contrasts with the blue sky behind, and the scarf binds the two!  If Rubens lacked grace, Van Dyck abounded in it.  What a consummate elegance!  What a perfect cavalier!  No wonder the fine ladies in England admired Sir Antony.  Look at—­

Here the clock strikes three, and the three gendarmes who keep the Musee cry out, “Allons!  Sortons!  Il est trois heures!  Allez!  Sortez!” and they skip out of the gallery as happy as boys running from school.  And we must go too, for though many stay behind—­many Britons with Murray’s Handbooks in their handsome hands—­they have paid a franc for entrance-fee, you see; and we knew nothing about the franc for entrance until those gendarmes with sheathed sabres had driven us out of this Paradise.

But it was good to go and drive on the great quays, and see the ships unlading, and by the citadel, and wonder howabouts and whereabouts it was so strong.  We expect a citadel to look like Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein at least.  But in this one there is nothing to see but a flat plain and some ditches, and some trees, and mounds of uninteresting green.  And then I remember how there was a boy at school, a little dumpy fellow of no personal appearance whatever, who couldn’t be overcome except by a much bigger champion, and the immensest quantity of thrashing.  A perfect citadel of a boy, with a General Chasse sitting in that bomb-proof casemate, his heart, letting blow after blow come thumping about his head, and never thinking of giving in.

And we go home, and we dine in the company of Britons, at the comfortable Hotel du Parc, and we have bought a novel apiece for a shilling, and every half-hour the sweet carillon plays the waltz from Dinorah in the air.  And we have been happy; and it seems about a month since we left London yesterday; and nobody knows where we are, and we defy care and the postman.

SPOORWEG.—­Vast green flats, speckled by spotted cows, and bound by a gray frontier of windmills; shining canals stretching through the green; odors like those exhaled from the Thames in the dog-days, and a fine pervading smell of cheese; little trim houses, with tall roofs, and great windows of many panes; gazebos, or summer-houses, hanging over pea-green canals; kind-looking, dumpling-faced farmers’ women, with laced caps and golden frontlets and earrings; about the houses and towns which we pass a great air of comfort and neatness; a queer feeling of wonder that you can’t understand what your fellow-passengers are saying, the tone of whose voices, and a certain comfortable dowdiness of dress, are so like our own;—­whilst we are remarking on these sights, sounds, smells,