ABSTRACT
The country where they journeyed, that green, breezy valley of the Loing, is one very attractive to cheerful and solitary people. The Arethusa was unwisely dressed. He is no precisian in attire; but by all accounts, he was never so ill inspired as on that tramp; having set forth indeed, upon a moment's notice, from the most unfashionable spot in Europe, Barbizon. The culprit remaining silent under this home thrust, the Commissary relished his triumph for a while, and then demanded (like the postman, but with what different expectations!) to see the contents of the knapsack. And here the Arethusa. not yet sufficiently awake to his position, fell into a grave mistake. The philosophic and still more the imaginative mind is apt to suppose itself prepared for any mortal accident. It is one of the curiosities of human nature, that although all men are liars, they can none of them bear to be told so of themselves.
