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walked back into the foggy London street. The world lay
before her—she could do whatever she chose. There was a
deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tol-
erably discreet; she chose simply to walk back from Euston
Square to her hotel. The early dusk of a November afternoon
had already closed in; the street-lamps, in the thick, brown
air, looked weak and red; our heroine was unattended and
Euston Square was a long way from Piccadilly. But Isabel
performed the journey with a positive enjoyment of its dan-
gers and lost her way almost on purpose, in order to get more
sensations, so that she was disappointed when an obliging
policeman easily set her right again. She was so fond of the
spectacle of human life that she enjoyed even the aspect of
gathering dusk in the London streets—the moving crowds,
the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring stalls, the
dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her
hotel, she wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a
day or two for Rome. She made her way down to Rome with-
out touching at Florence—having gone first to Venice and
then proceeded southward by Ancona. She accomplished
this journey without other assistance than that of her ser-
vant, for her natural protectors were not now on the ground.
Ralph Touchett was spending the winter at Corfu, and Miss
Stackpole, in the September previous, had been recalled to
America by a telegram from the Interviewer. This journal
offered its brilliant correspondent a fresher field for her ge-
nius than the mouldering cities of Europe, and Henrietta
was cheered on her way by a promise from Mr. Bantling that
he would soon come over to see her. Isabel wrote to Mrs.

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