the colonel--who has taken the small liberty of turning me out of my own
house in Hamburgh--mention last night at supper. But a man like Davoust
cannot be judged of by common rules. He has, in short, taken a fancy to
me, for which you may thank your stars although your life has been
actually saved by the Prince having burned his fingers,--But here comes
my father."

A venerable old man entered the room, leaning on his stick. I was
introduced in due form.

"He had breakfasted in his own room," he said, "having been ailing; but he
could not rest quietly, after he had heard there was an Englishman in the
house, until he had himself welcomed him."

I shall never forget the kindness I experienced from these worthy people.
For three days I was fed and clothed by them as if I had been a member of
the family.

Like a boy as I was, I had risen on the fourth morning at grey dawn, to be
aiding in dragging the fish--pond, so that it might be cleaned out.

This was an annual amusement, in which the young men and women in the
family, under happier circumstances, had been in the invariable custom of
joining; and, changed as these were, they still preserved the fashion.
The seine was cast in at one end, loaded at the bottom with heavy sinks,
and buoyant at the top with cork floats. We hauled it along the whole
length of the pond, thereby driving the fish into an enclosure, about
twenty feet square, with a sluice towards the pond, and another fronting
the dull ditch that flowed past beyond it. Whenever we had hunted the
whole of the finny tribes--(barring those slippery youths the eels, who,