The next Sunday
he went to hear the Rev. Mr. Hall preach, and felt quite consoled.
The summer fell upon Val d'Arno like the upsetting of a Tuscan
_Scaldino_, and Ralph Flare regretfully took his departure northward.
All the world was going to Paris--why not he? Was he afraid? Certainly
not; it had been a great victory over temptation to stay away so long.
He would carry out the triumph by braving a return.
In accordance with his principles of economy, he took a third-class
ticket at Basle. He could so make better studies of passengers; for,
somehow, your first-class people have not character faces. The only
character you get out of them is the character of wine they consume.
He left the Alps behind him, and rolled all day through the prosaic
plains of France; startling the pale little towns, down whose treeless
streets the sun shone, oh! so drearily, and taking up boors and
market-folks at every monastic station. There was a pretty young girl
sitting beside Ralph in the afternoon, but he refused to talk to her,
for he was schooling himself, and preferred to scan the features of an
odd old couple who got in at Troyes.
They were two old people of the country, and they sat together in the
descending shadows of the day, quite like in garb and feature, their
chins a little peakish, and the hairs of both turning gray.
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