You adventure upon love as upon a voyage to India.

Leaving the cold northern latitudes of first acquaintance behind you, you gradually glide into the warmer and more genial climate of intimacy.

Each day you travel southward shortens the miles and the hours of your existence; so tranquil is the passage, and so easy the transition, you suffer no shock by the change of temperature about you.

Happy were it for us that in our courtship, as in our voyage, there were some certain Rubicon to remind us of the miles we have journeyed! Well were it if there were some meridian in love!" "I'm not sure, Fred, that there is not that same shaving process they practise on the line, occasionally performed for us by parents and guardians at home; and I'm not certain that the iron hoop of old Neptune is not a pleasanter acquaintance than the hair-trigger of some indignant and fire-eating brother.

But come, Fred, you have not told me the most important point,--how fare your fortunes now; or in other words, what are your present prospects as regards the senhora ?" "What a question to ask me! Why not request me to tell you where Soult will fight us next, and when Marmont will cross the frontier?
My dear boy, I have not seen her for a week, an entire week,--seven full days and nights, each with their twenty-four hours of change and vacillation." "Well, then, give me the last bulletin from the seat of war; that at least you can do.