Page:Arabia, Egypt, India - A Narrative of Travel.djvu/22

4 (London) we only remarked that there must be something extra "odd" about the elements, with a passing smile at the unhappy foreigner who had come over to see London. Our dear "village" gloomed like a snow Inferno fit for Dante and Gustave Dore, and the "Squares" appeared like spectre Christmas Trees. " It looks," said my husband, "as if London were in mourning for some great national crime;" but I answered, "Let us try to think our Vaterland wears mourning for our departure into exile,"

Everyone that day seemed ill and miserable ; I felt as if I could never rise to face the day. To be sure we had been having a farewell dinner, which festivity devoted to leave-takings had been unduly prolonged to five o'clock a.m., and we were obliged to force ourselves to get up at nine, and put our shoulders to the wheel for our sins. We lunched with my father and family by lamp-light at one in the day, and set out, a large family party, by the 4.45 train to Folkestone; arriving cold and hungry, but merry, we enjoyed a delightful supper at one of the best hotels in the world, albeit somewhat expensive, and that is The Pavilion,—the redeeming point of Folkestone, for poor is the station through which so much wealth passes. There we found Carlo Pellegrini, of Ape celebrity, full of fun, who joined our family party. He was staying there some months for painting.

The next day, Sunday, the snow was eight feet deep, and we went with difficulty to the small pretty church, where the priest gave us a short, but sensible, sermon,' in consideration of our pinched fingers and toes. All that day neighbouring friends and relations flocked over to spend the day with us; and one act I shall never forget, and that was my cousin's wife, daily expecting her confinement, wading four miles in the snow not to miss wishing us God-speed, because no carriage could be got to undertake the journey. Heart and pluck like that are not to be found out of the British Isles. Meanwhile the train stuck in the snow; the down train from Folkestone to Dover, usually an affair of twenty minutes, occupied from six till one p.m.—seven hours. The night train could not come in at all. The boat did not go, and it was " blowing great guns."

That night — the 5th of December—I bade adieu to all my friends and relatives, and one parting in particular still wrings my