It was a long tedious journey, and my heart beats with gratitude to
him when I think what he undertook for me, and how dreary it must
have been for him, while I was too dead and dull to thank him, though
I hope my love and confidence evinced my gratitude in after life.

My dearest went first in a hearse drawn by mules, as was also my
large carriage,--that which we had so joyously bought together,
saying it would be like a kind of tent on our travels. I traveled in
it with my child and my women, and M. de Solivet rode with our men-
servants. Our pace was too slow for the fatigue to be too much for
him, and he always preceded me to every place where we halted to eat,
or where we lodged for the night, and had everything ready without a
thought or a word being needful from me. He always stood ready to
give me his arm to take me to hear mass before we set out each day.
The perfect calm, and the quiet moving on, began to do me good. I
felt as if the journey had always been going on, and only wished it
were endless, for when it was over I should feel my desolation, and
have no more to do for my Philippe. But I began to respond to my
poor boy's caresses and playfulness a little more; I was not so short
and maussade with my women or with my good brother, and I tried to
pray at mass. My brother has since told me that he never felt more
relieved in his life than once when he made little Gaspard bring me
some blue corn-flowers and wheat, which reminded me of my English
home, so that I began to weep so profusely, that he carried away the
poor frightened child, and left me to Tryphena.

One afternoon at a little village there was a look of festival; the
bells were ringing, everybody was hurrying to the church, and when we
stopped at the door of the inn my brother came to the carriage-window
and said he was afraid that we should not find it easy to proceed at