the city? Hark! there is the boom of the cannon!"
"At Pontoise? Let me see; that is a station on the line to Amiens. Let us get to the railway, and proceed to England by the first train."
Posela assented, and we walked down the hill. In a quarter of an hour we were entering the town and passing down its silent streets, quite deserted, save by the Prussian sentries, whose helmets glistened in the gaslight. I now beheld them for the first time. It was evident we were out of the lines of Paris.
We found the railway-station lighted up, and half full of people waiting for the early train. A Prussian sentry was walking up and down, and a corporal's guard were lounging in the salle d' attente. At length the train came up, and I can hardly describe my feelings when at last I was on my way to England.
My strange travelling companion was rather sad. He spoke again and again of the miseries he had seen, caused by this terrible war; of the folly of nations in not abolishing such a mode of settling disputes; of its waste and sinfulness. I listened to him, and accepted his arguments, which were eloquently put. Then he changed the subject, and asked me a host of
