couple for a while.'

'If 'twere no bigger than a summer-house it would do!' says Barbara.

'If 'twere no bigger than a sedan-chair!' says Willowes. 'And the
more lonely the better.'

'We can put up with the loneliness,' said Barbara, with less zest.
'Some friends will come, no doubt.'

All this being laid down, a travelled tutor was called in--a man of
many gifts and great experience,--and on a fine morning away tutor
and pupil went. A great reason urged against Barbara accompanying
her youthful husband was that his attentions to her would naturally
be such as to prevent his zealously applying every hour of his time
to learning and seeing--an argument of wise prescience, and
unanswerable. Regular days for letter-writing were fixed, Barbara
and her Edmond exchanged their last kisses at the door, and the
chaise swept under the archway into the drive.

He wrote to her from Le Havre, as soon as he reached that port,
which was not for seven days, on account of adverse winds; he wrote
from Rouen, and from Paris; described to her his sight of the King
and Court at Versailles, and the wonderful marble-work and mirrors
in that palace; wrote next from Lyons; then, after a comparatively
long interval, from Turin, narrating his fearful adventures in
crossing Mont Cenis on mules, and how he was overtaken with a
terrific snowstorm, which had well-nigh been the end of him, and his
tutor, and his guides. Then he wrote glowingly of Italy; and
Barbara could see the development of her husband's mind reflected in