They appeared at the first-floor window, looking very happy, and he
drank their health, and they his. I could see Gogo and Mimsey in the
crowd behind them, and mildly wondered again, as I had so often wondered
before, how I came to see it all from the outside--from another point of
view than Gogo's.

Then the courier bowed gallantly, and said, _"Bonne chance!"_ and went
trotting down the Grande Rue on his way to the Tuileries, and the
wedding guests began to sing: they sang a song beginning--

_"Il etait un petit navire, Qui n'avait jamais navigue_...."

I had quite forgotten it, and listened till the end, and thought it very
pretty; and was interested in a dull, mechanical way at discovering
that it must be the original of Thackeray's famous ballad of "Little
Billee," which I did not hear till many years after. When they came to
the last verse--

"_Si cette histoire vous embete, Nous allons la recommencer_,"

I went on my way. This was my last walk in dreamland, perhaps, and
dream-hours are uncertain, and I would make the most of them, and
look about me.

I walked towards Ranelagh, a kind of casino, where they used to give
balls and theatrical performances on Sunday and Thursday nights (and
where afterwards Rossini spent the latter years of his life; then it was
pulled down, I am told, to make room for many smart little villas).

In the meadow opposite M. Erard's park, Saindou's school-boys were