on the Rhine has remained in my memory, that I cannot help smiling when I hear people say that they intend to take children travelling for their amusement and instruction.  In our case we were put in the carriage because my mother would not leave us behind, and wanted to give our grandparents pleasure by our presence.  She was right, but in spite of my inborn love of travel the month we spent on the journey seemed a period of very uncomfortable restlessness.  A child realizes only a single detail of beauty—­a flower, a radiant star, a human face.  Any individual recollection of the journey to Holland, aside from what has been told me, is getting into the travelling carriage, a little green leather Bajazzo dressed in red and white given to me by a relative, and the box of candies bestowed to take on the trip by a friend of my mother.

Of our reception in the Belgian capital at the house of Adolphe Jones, the husband of my aunt Henriette, a sister of my mother, I retain many recollections.

Our pleasant host was a painter of animals, whom I afterward saw sharing his friend Verboeckhoven’s studio, and whose flocks of sheep were very highly praised.  At that time his studio was in his own house, and it seems as if I could still hear the call in my aunt’s shrill voice, repeated countless times a day, “Adolphe!” and the answer, following promptly in the deepest bass tones, “Henriette!” This singular freak, which greatly amused us, was due, as I learned afterward, to my aunt’s jealousy, which almost bordered on insanity.

In later years I learned to know him as a jovial artist, who in the days of his youth very possibly might have given the strait-laced lady cause for anxiety.  Even when his locks were white he was ready for any pleasure; but he devoted himself earnestly to art, and I am under obligation to him for being the means of my mother’s possessing the friendship of the animal painter, Verboeckhoven, and that greatest of more modern Belgian artists, Louis Gallait and his family, in whose society and home I have passed many delightful hours.

In recalling our arrival at the Jones house I first see the merry, smiling face—­somewhat faunlike in its expression—­of my six-foot uncle, and the plump figure of his wonderfully good and when undisturbed by jealousy—­no less cheery wife.  There was something specially winning and lovable about her, and I have heard that this lady, my mother’s oldest sister, possessed in her youth the same dazzling beauty.  At the famous ball in Brussels this so captivated the Duke of Wellington that he offered her his arm to escort her back to her seat.  My mother also remembered the Napoleonic days, and I thought she had been specially favoured in seeing this great man when he entered Rotterdam, and also Goethe.