to Paris next month. Ever since Mrs. Edwards mentioned it to me, I
have felt a desire to go with them. I don't know why, but so it is.
I think it would do me good to go to Paris and spend a few months
there. When a young girl, I always had a great desire to see London
and Paris; and this desire is again in my mind."

"I would go, then," said Aunt Hannah, who thought favourably of any
thing likely to divert the mind of her niece from the brooding
melancholy in which it was shrouded.

To Paris Mrs. Canning went, accompanied by her little daughter, who
was the favourite of every one on board the steamer in which they
sailed. In this gray city, however, she did not attain as much
relief of mind as she had anticipated. She found it almost
impossible to take interest in any thing, and soon began to long for
the time to come when she could go back to the home and heart of her
good Aunt Hannah. The greatest pleasure she took was in going with
Lilly to the Gardens of the Tuileries, and amid the crowd there to
feel alone with nature in some of her most beautiful aspects. Lilly
was always delighted to get there, and never failed to bring
something in her pocket for the pure white swans that floated so
gracefully in the marble basin into which the water dashed cool and
sparkling from beautiful fountains.

One day, while the child was playing at a short distance from her
mother, a man seated beside a bronze statue, over which drooped a
large orange tree, fixed his eyes upon her admiringly, as hundreds
of others had done. Presently she came up and stood close to him,
looking up into the face of the statue. The man said something to
her in French, but Lilly only smiled and shook her head.