THE FRIENDS.
* * * * * * Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance or song, he sternly scorns,
For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the social still and smiling kind.--Thomson.
Our cook--yes, our cook--for we took it into our heads to keep house at Pau, and did not repent of it, for Therese behaved as well in our household as ever girl did, and besides other merits, could make fruit tarts and British dishes, having lived two years with the English family that I have said we met at Aire.
Our cook then, on our return from the Eaux Bonnes, was called upon for her accounts, inasmuch as cooks must eat and drink like other animals, and we had told her to provide herself with what she liked during our absence. Her bread and her wine formed a regular weekly bill apart, but farther than that, her expenses amounted to--and she was as fine a fat rosy-cheeked lass as one would wish to see--amounted to the sum of three-halfpence per diem. I could scarcely forbear laughing, but I did so for the good of society. If I had laughed she would have charged the next people two-pence a-day, as long as she lived, and rightly too, for surely no one would be economical and laughed at for their pains?
Two days after our first arrival in this little capital of the Basses Pyrenees, we strolled down into a valley below the town, and loitered along by the banks of the river, seeing several groups pass us, knowing no one, and known of none, and perhaps not wishing a little to place ourselves in the midst of some of them, and have our share of the conversation of Pau as well as the rest. At length, however, a party came near, and I began to have a strange undefined remembrance of the form of one of the persons composing it. I was not wrong, I had known her just before she left school; there was all the change from an interesting girl to a lovely young woman; but it was the same person, and she had not forgotten me either. We were kindly greeted, and quickly became no longer strange even with the rest of the party. To know them was to have the highest regard for them all. We were glad to seek their acquaintance, and acquaintance soon ripened into friendship. Within their little circle we found all that could be desired--talents, and grace, and cheerfulness, and nature, and in their society we had some of the happiest hours we met with on the continent.
Whether my companion had told tales of my rhyming propensities, or whether I had been my own accuser, I forget: but I was soon called upon for verses, and drawings. I agreed to contribute if others would do so too; and we once more drew a magic circle round us in which the spirit of poetry and romance rose up and whiled away many an hour at our bidding. Some of the pieces which I myself contributed I know were bad enough, I was sorry that I had written them; but I now only remember one or two--the rest of the tales and anecdotes were given by others. The first thing of the kind which I shall transcribe was occasioned by a lady accusing me of having composed nothing for her--I asked for a subject, but she replied that I must choose one myself, she would give me "nothing."