not unmoved, bowed lowly in return, but unfortunately backing as
he did so, tripped himself up with characteristic awkwardness, and
tumbled backwards on a heap of broken stones prepared for the road,
with his heels in the air, and exhibiting to his unfaithful Tuscans
and ungrateful Duchy, as a last remembrance of him, a full view of a
part of his person rarely put forward on such occasions.

And so _exeunt_ from the sight of men and from history a Grand Duke
and a Grand Duchy.




CHAPTER VII.


It was not long after the flood in Florence--it seems to me, as I
write, that I might almost leave out the two last words!--that I saw
Dickens for the first time. One morning in Casa Berti my mother was
most agreeably surprised by a card brought in to her with "Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Dickens" on it. We had been among his heartiest admirers
from the early days of _Pickwick_. I don't think we had happened to
see the _Sketches by Boz_. But my uncle Milton used to come to
Hadley full of "the last _Pickwick_," and swearing that each number
out-Pickwicked Pickwick. And it was with the greatest curiosity and
interest that we saw the creator of all this enjoyment enter in the
flesh.

We were at first disappointed, and disposed to imagine there must be
some mistake! No! _that_ is not the man who wrote _Pickwick_! What we