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ployed him, and had been satisfied with him, she would do him so much honor, and it would be of such great advantage to him. He should prize her testimonial infinitely more than any other one he had in his book.

"Though you will find," said he turning over the leaves and speaking now in French, "if you take the trouble to read some of them, that I have the names here of several of the most distinguished personages in your country, as well as in England."

So Pacifico put the book into Florence's hands and went away. Florence and John spent some time in looking over it, and in reading the various testimonials which it contained; and especially in looking at the names of the people that signed them, to see whether there were any among them that they had ever heard of before.

At length Florence took the book to the table, and sat down to add her testimonial to the others. John stood by her side making suggestions, from time to time, such as "Tell 'em that he has got two pair of elegant black horses, and they go down the long inclines in the road like the wind;" and "Tell 'em he gave us most excellent dinners and suppers, and lets boys ride with him on the front seat whenever they please.

Only," he added, with a thoughtful air and tone, "he never would let me drive."

So Florence wrote a testimonial after her own idea, saying in it that her brother and herself, two children, had been left alone in Rome in consequence of very peculiar and extraordinary circumstances having occurred to take their father and mother away, and had been put under Pacifico's charge to be conveyed to Geneva, and that he had performed the duty in a most faithful, kind and attentive manner, and that if occasion required they should feel safe in being put under his charge to go round the world.

She then laid the book aside, in order to give it to Pacifico in the morning and soon afterward she and John went to bed.

CHAPTER XVIII.

RAILWAY TO PARIS.

It is a long journey from Geneva to Paris, the distance being many hundred miles, so that it requires more than one day to make the passage, even in the swiftest express trains. Still Florence concluded that it would be best for her and John to go through without stopping.

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They will stop long enough," she said—in explaining her plan to John-" at the different towns along the route, for us to rest and to have something to eat, and when night comes, we can sleep in the carriage, the seats are so comfortable and so soft."

"Yes," said John, "we can sleep in them as well as we could in a bed.”

Besides, Pacifico himself recommended this plan to them. They might have to change carriages at Lyons, he said, but that would be very little trouble for them, compared to leaving the train and going to spend a night at a hotel. So, when he took them to the station at Geneva on

the morning after their arrival in that city, he bought tickets for them to Paris, and registered the trunk to go there, too. Then, after seeing them comfortably established in a carriage all by themselves, he bade them good bye, and left them alone.

They were not alone long, however, for presently some other travellers entered the carriage, and soon afterward the train began to move. Florence had a seat by the window, and John had a middle seat by her side, though there was a broad and well-stuffed arm between them, and likewise another, beyond John, between him and the seat in the other corner, next the window on that side. For, as the reader is probably aware, the first class carriages on the European railways are divided into compartments, each of which forms an interior resembling that of an ordinary coach, only it is much larger, and the seats are much more spacious and comfortable.

At first, the children both felt somewhat afraid at being thus left entirely to themselves among strangers, and with so long a journey before them. They felt restrained, too, by the presence of the other persons in the same carriage, who, of course, sat directly before them, face to face, for the plan of the carriage, as above described, renders this disagreeable confronting

of the different parties of passengers occupying the same compartment, unavoidable. This is, in fact, one serious disadvantage of the system, though it must be confessed that it has some advantages which go far toward balancing this inconvenience.

The constraint, however, which Florence and John felt at first, gradually passed away. The other passengers, though they spoke English, said nothing to them, nor did they seem to take any notice of them in any way. So, after talking together a little while in an undertone, they took out the books which they had provided themselves with, and began to read.

The train stopped occasionally, sometimes for ten minutes, and sometimes for twenty. The first time they stopped for twenty minutes, the conductor of the train came to their carriage, and said that if they wished to get out, he would show them the way to the ladies' waiting-room, and to the refreshment room. The children wondered at his showing them this particular attention, but the conductor explained it on the way across the platform, by saying that Pacifico had informed him about them.

"He gave me in charge to have a good care of you," said the conductor. "He tells me you are such charming children, travelling alone by

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