a great deal more pleasant for me, in every respect, to remain here with you. My only reason for changing my seat is to avoid incommoding you with the smoke of the cigar."

"It is very kind and polite in you to say so," rejoined Arabella, "but I am sure you will enjoy being on the outside seat a great deal more. As for the smoke, it does not make much difference, for the motion of the carriage, even when then is no wind, makes it all come back into my face. But that's no matter. I don't mind it much, and I would not on any account deprive you of the pleasure of smoking your cigar.

"So you will go, won't you, George—and stay just as long as you like. Speak to Francisco to stop."

Thus urged, Mr. King spoke to the vetturino, and when the carriage stopped, he went to take his place upon the front seat.

All this took place just before the two carriages met each other, and thus it happened that while Florence and John were riding along, both of them perfectly contented and happy, Mr. King and his wife, who, in respect to the circumstances in which they were placed, were in almost precisely the same situation, were both out of humor and miserable.

Such differences as these are continually ap

pearing among people travelling in Europe. Out of precisely the same combinations of circumstances from which some people contrive to find for themselves endless sources of discontent, vexation and ill humor, others, whose minds and hearts are more happily organized, seem to procure the means of a great deal of tranquil and unalloyed enjoyment.

7

CHAPTER VII.

NIGHT AT A HOTEL.

THE route which Florence had decided to take in returning to France was to go first to the city of Florence, thence through the northern part of Italy to the foot of the Alps, and over the Alps, by the Simplon Pass, into Switzerland and to Geneva. There she was to dismiss Pacifico and take the railway to Paris.

This was, she knew, a long journey, requiring a great many days of travel. At the present time the railway system has been extended far down into Italy, but at the time of this story Geneva was the nearest place where she could reach a continuous line of railway, conducting to Paris, and she preferred to go to Geneva by Florence and the Simplon, because she had already passed over that route once with her mother, and so she thought that she should feel more at home in it, than in going by any new way.

Besides her understanding this route better

than any other, she remembered distinctly many of the hotels where her mother had stopped. Sometimes they had stopped two or three days at a hotel, and in such cases the party had become somewhat acquainted with the landlord or landlady, or with particular servants. Florence thought that some of these persons would remember her on seeing her again with John. At any rate, she should remember them, and knowing how kind they had been to her before, she felt safe in coming under their care once

more.

But to return to the story. The place where Florence and John were to stop the first night was a town called Civita Castellana. Some time before reaching this place they came in sight of a high mountain which seemed to follow them as they went on along the road, and to keep with them a long time. The reason was that the road passed in a winding direction round the base of the mountain. At last they reached the town, and Pacifico urging on his horses galloped in along the narrow paved street, cracking his whip and making as much noise as possible, and compelling all the poor old women and children in the street to hurry out of the way into the bye streets or up against the sides of the houses as the carriage thundered by

After going on for some distance in this way Pacifico reined up his horses before the door of an ancient and venerable looking building which proved to be the hotel. There was a stone bench before the door, with several old men in quaint Italian costume sitting upon it. One or two hostlers came out from an archway near, and took the heads of Pacifico's horses. Pacifico himself desended from his seat, and said to the children, speaking in French,

"You will remain in your seats until I go into the hotel and make arrangements."

So he went into the hotel, leaving the children in the carriage. He was gone some time, and during his absence the beggars, as usual in Italy, began to gather around the carriage. Some crawled slowly up, bowed down with age and infirmity. Some hobbled along on crutches. There was a tall and very pale and sickly girl, that looked as if she was on the very brink of the grave, who stood back a little way, apart from the rest, and begged only by looking piteously at Florence. Besides these there were several healthy looking men and women, but their clothes were all in tatters, and they seemed to be reduced to the last stage of destitution and misery.

"Florence," said John, "I mean to feel in