"How much trouble she makes her husband!" said Rollo.
"It is not the trouble," said Mr. George, "it is the mortification and annoyance. She is a perpetual torment. If that's the way that young wives treat their husbands on the bridal tour, I'm thankful that I am not a bridegroom."
The train soon set out, and Mr. George and Rollo, forgetting Estelle, soon began to enjoy the ride. They were both extremely interested in the views which they obtained from their windows as they passed along, and with the antique and quaint appearance of the country—the ancient stone cottages, with thatched roofs; the peasants, in their picturesque dresses; the immense tracts of cultivated country, divided in green and brown patches, like the beds of a garden, but with no fences or enclosures of any kind to be seen; the great forests, with trees planted closely in rows, like the corn in an American cornfield; and the roadways which they occasionally passed—immense avenues, bordered on either hand with double rows of majestic trees, and extending across the country, as straight as the street of a city, till lost in the horizon. These and a thousand other things, which were all the time presenting themselves to view, kept the travellers continually full of wonder and delight.
After going on thus for several hours, the train stopped in a very spacious depot, where there was a large refreshment room; and as one of the attendants called out that there would be ten minutes of rest, both Mr. George and Rollo got out, and went into the refreshment room. They found a great multitude of cakes and meats spread out upon an immense counter, and dishes of every kind, all totally unknown to them. They, of course, could not call for any thing; but, after taking a survey, they helped themselves to what they thought looked as if it might be good, and then paid in the same way, by letting the girls that attended the tables help themselves to money which the travellers held out to them in their hands. They then took their seats again in the car, and soon afterward the train moved on.
The place where they had stopped was Rouen, which, as well as Dieppe and Paris, the reader will find, on examining any map of France. In the course of the ride from Rouen to Paris, Mr. George and Rollo fell into quite a conversation, in which Rollo received a great deal of very good advice from Mr. George in respect to the care of himself when he should get to Paris.
"I suppose that I should be sure to get lost," said Rollo, "if I should attempt to go out in such a great city alone."
"No," said Mr. George, "not at all. A person can walk about a great way, sometimes, in a strange city, without getting lost. All he has to do is to take care, at first, to go only in such directions as that he can keep the way home in his mind."
"I don't know what you mean, exactly, by that," said Rollo.
"Why, suppose you were in a great city, and you come out at the door of your hotel, and there you find a long, straight street. You walk along that street half a mile. Then don't you think you could find your way home?"
"Yes," said Rollo.