I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as we came opposite the head of this path on that morning.  I think I tried to speak twice without making myself distinctly audible.  At last I got out the question,—­Will you take the long path with me?  —­Certainly,—­said the schoolmistress,—­with much pleasure.—­Think, —­I said,—­before you answer; if you take the long path with me now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more!—­The schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an arrow had struck her.

One of the long granite blocks used as seats was hard by,—­the one you may still see close by the Gingko-tree.—­Pray, sit down,—­I said.—­No, no, she answered, softly,—­I will walk the long path with you!

—­The old gentleman who sits opposite met us walking, arm in arm, about the middle of the long path, and said, very charmingly, —­“Good morning, my dears!”

CHAPTER XII

[I did not think it probable that I should have a great many more talks with our company, and therefore I was anxious to get as much as I could into every conversation.  That is the reason why you will find some odd, miscellaneous facts here, which I wished to tell at least once, as I should not have a chance to tell them habitually at our breakfast-table.—­We’re very free and easy, you know; we don’t read what we don’t like.  Our parish is so large, one can’t pretend to preach to all the pews at once.  One can’t be all the time trying to do the best of one’s best if a company works a steam fire-engine, the firemen needn’t be straining themselves all day to squirt over the top of the flagstaff.  Let them wash some of those lower-story windows a little.  Besides, there is no use in our quarrelling now, as you will find out when you get through this paper.]

—­Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond to the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels.  I am thinking of travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially in Italy.  Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.  I can prove some facts about travelling by a story or two.  There are certain principles to be assumed,—­such as these:—­He who is carried by horses must deal with rogues.  —­To-day’s dinner subtends a larger visual angle than yesterday’s revolution.  A mote in my eye is bigger to me than the biggest of Dr. Gould’s private planets.—­Every traveller is a self-taught entomologist.—­Old jokes are dynamometers of mental tension; an old joke tells better among friends travelling than at home,—­which shows that their minds are in a state of diminished, rather than increased vitality.  There was a story about “strahps to your pahnts,” which was vastly funny to us fellows—­on the road from Milan to Venice.—­Caelum, non animum,—­travellers change their guineas,