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414 Signora Picirillo lived with her nephew and his merry little wife in the pretty house at Brixton; but she paid very frequent visits to Tolldale Priory, sometimes accompanied by Richard and Mrs. Richard, sometimes alone. Matrimony had had a very good effect upon the outward seeming of the scene-painter: for his young wife initiated him in the luxury of shirt-buttons, as contrasted with pins; to say nothing of the delights of a shower-bath, and a pair of ivory-backed hairbrushes, presented by Eleanor as a birthday present to her old friend. Richard at first suggested that the ivory-backed brushes should be used as chimney-ornaments in the Brixton drawing-room; but afterwards submitted to the popular view of the subject, and brushed his hair. Major and Mrs. Lennard were also visitors at Tolldale, and Laura knew the happiness of paternal and maternal love—the paternal affection evincing itself in the presentation of a great deal of frivolous jewellery, purchased upon credit; the maternal devotion displaying itself in a wild admiration of Launcelot Darrell’s son and heir, a pink-faced baby, who made his appearance in the year 1861, and who looked very much better than the “Dying Gladiator,” exhibited by Mr. Darrell in the same year. Little children’s voices sounded by-and-bye in the shady pathways of the old-fashioned Priory garden, and in all Berkshire there was not a happier woman than Gilbert Monckton’s beautiful young wife.

And, after all, Eleanor’s Victory was a proper womanly conquest, and not a stern, classical vengeance. The tender woman’s heart triumphed over the girl’s rash vow; and poor George Vane’s enemy was left to the only Judge whose judgments are always righteous.

my steps in order to see Saumur, of the beauty of whose site and of whose cheapness I had heard marvels. I was disappointed in both. Saumur, partly built on the rocks overhanging the Loire, and its handsome long stone bridge, white houses of Tufa stone, intermixed with green foliage, with here and there church spires, and quaint old towers rising from among them, and on the topmost heights the strong castle frowning above all, is pretty, rather than strikingly beautiful. A long line of windmills reaches from the castle, crowning the wooded banks of the river. I am not like a certain Yorkshire lady, who said the view from her window wanted nothing but a windmill to make it perfect. To me, these innumerable mills spoil the grace of the picture; however, there they are, and I must mention them, for they are a distinguishing feature of the place. The Loire is very inferior in beauty to the Wye, the Wharfe, and a thousand other less-famed English rivers, whose banks are infinitely more steep and romantic, and more richly fringed with umbrageous trees: and at this time of the year it is disfigured by immense sand-banks, which divide it into numerous shallow streams.

Entering the town from the chemin de fer, I crossed the bridge. Before me lay a wide, handsome street, traversing the whole length of the town, the road continuing in one straight line up a green avenue of trees and across a smaller bridge (Pont Fouchard), through the faubourg of the same name, till it was lost to sight as it sloped straight upwards and onwards in a second long green avenue, whose distant tree-tops closed-in the distance. This one handsome main-street, beginning and ending in leafy verdure, seems common in France, and it certainly gives an air of grandeur to the town, which is not justified by the reality. My first care was to seek for lodgings, hotels being too dear for a spinster’s purse. I made many inquiries in the shops, but was told I should find none. To save others similar trouble, I advise them at once to go to the quartier St. Nicholas, near the EcoleÉcole [sic] de Cavalerie, or about the Rue du Collége. There are plenty in both neighbourhoods. I hired pleasant rooms, au premier, numero 70 Bis, Rue St. Nicholas. There is a small terrace, trellised over with flowers, on the first landing, and my apartment is so thoroughly French, and so unlike English cheap lodgings, I must describe it. My cabinet de toilette is a small room; but the bed, standing in a recess, shadowed by white curtains, leaves an ample space. Against the closed fire-place are my washing utensils, on an unpainted wooden table, washed clean every morning. I find this more convenient and cleaner than the English wash-stands, with their cracked, discoloured, half-washed paint. Over the chimney-piece hangs a mirror against the wall. Swing looking-glasses are only used by great people. From my window I look out upon an old tower of singular form and curious construction, whose use and history are unknown. It is conjectured, however, to have served at some distant date as a phare, or lighthouse. A number of gentlemen have been lately sent through France to sketch all antique monuments, and this among them. The stones of which it is built are so placed as to lay like tiles, one over the other—all sloping and regularly diminishing to the top. Beyond it is a pretty garden, and a house au fond, where lodge some officers. My salon opens with large French windows on to a balcony with oleanders, and a Persian lilac tree, flowering now for the second time. There is none of the vulgarity of an English lodging in a back street in London about it. I have a long settee with two large cushions, two fauteuils, and an easy chair of mahogany, covered with scarlet damask, two rush chairs, and a small round walnut-tree centre table covered with a scarlet and black cloth. There is the usual commode of mahogany, with its deep drawers and grey marble top, for my clothes; and besides these a mahogany placard, or cupboard, where I keep my eatables, with its door of plate-glass, which serves me as a cheval glass, in which I can see myself from head to foot. The chimney-piece is of brownish marble, and the open chimney has no grate, only two iron dogs with the usual sphinx-heads, for confining the wood fire. Sur la cheminée stands a very beautiful ormolu clock which strikes the hours, under a glass shade; and two handsome large china vases of elegant form,