Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/127

Rh of Richard; but little thinking she was speaking anything in earnest, she said, "Well, if you marry that man, you will have sold your birthright not for a mess of pottage, but for Burton ale." I quickly answered her back again, "Well, a little bird told me that you were ordered an immense quantity of it all the time you were in the family way with me, so that if anything does happen we shall call it heredity," upon which we both laughed. We all left home at six o'clock for London Bridge Station: we—my sister, her husband, and myself—to go on the journey, and the rest of the family came with us to see us off.

We had a beautiful passage of six and a half hours, and slept in rugs on deck. There was a splendid moon and starlight. About three o'clock in the morning the captain made friends with me, and talked about yachting. He had been nearly all over the world. The morning star was very brilliant, and I always look at it with particular affection when I am on board ship, thinking that what I love best lies under it. We got to the station at Dieppe at 7.30 a.m.; and then ensued a tedious journey to Paris.

The next day we drove about Paris, and then went to the Palais Royal, Trois Frères Provenceaux, where we dined in a dear little place called a cabinet, very like an opera-box. It was my first experience of that sort of thing. The cabinet overlooked the arcade and garden. We had a most recherché little dinner, and only one thing was wanting to make it perfect enjoyment to me. The Pigotts sat together on one side of the table, and I—alone on the other. I put a place