wings of my hopeless fancy bore me first of all; it was, oh! to tread
that sunlit grassy brink once more, and to watch the merry tadpoles
swarm, and the green frog takes its header like a little man, and the
water-rat swim to his hole among the roots of the willow, and the
horse-leech thread his undulating way between the water-lily stems; and
to dream fondly of the delightful, irrevocable past, on the very spot of
all where I and mine were always happiest!

"...Qu'ils etaient beaux, les jours De France!"

In the avenue I have mentioned (_the_ avenue, as it is still to me, and
as I will always call it) there was on the right hand, half the way up,
a _maison de sante_, or boarding-house, kept by one Madame Pele; and
there among others came to board and lodge, a short while after our
advent, four or five gentlemen who had tried to invade France, with a
certain grim Pretender at their head, and a tame eagle as a symbol of
empire to rally round.

The expedition had failed; the Pretender had been consigned to a
fortress; the eagle had found a home in the public slaughter-house of
Boulogne-sur-Mer, which it adorned for many years, and where it fed as
it had never probably fed before; and these, the faithful followers, le
Colonel Voisil, le Major Duquesnois, le Capitaine Audenis, le Docteur
Lombal (and one or two others whose names I have forgotten), were
prisoners on parole at Madame Pele's, and did not seem to find their
durance very vile.

[Illustration: (no caption)]

I grew to know and love them all, especially the Major Duquesnois, an