the scenes described with interest and delight.

And I have only now, in passport wise, to sketch my reader's
portrait, which I hope may be thus supposititiously traced for
either sex:

Complexion Fair.
Eyes Very cheerful.
Nose Not supercilious.
Mouth Smiling.
Visage Beaming.
General Expression Extremely agreeable.



CHAPTER I--GOING THROUGH FRANCE



On a fine Sunday morning in the Midsummer time and weather of
eighteen hundred and forty-four, it was, my good friend, when--
don't be alarmed; not when two travellers might have been observed
slowly making their way over that picturesque and broken ground by
which the first chapter of a Middle Aged novel is usually attained-
-but when an English travelling-carriage of considerable
proportions, fresh from the shady halls of the Pantechnicon near
Belgrave Square, London, was observed (by a very small French
soldier; for I saw him look at it) to issue from the gate of the
Hotel Meurice in the Rue Rivoli at Paris.