Café, where the coffee is delicious, and well-frequented is the salon. Hence to the redoute, or gaming-table. There! what think you of that? I enjoy your surprise: is not the room elegant? nay, is it not magnificent? Those chandeliers, what a brilliant blaze they reflect on the carved pillars, and on the fashionable throng! these couches and ottomans, how luxurious! I despair of moving you from the one you occupy-and then, the tables! aye, there's the rub! Whist, rouge-et-noir, roulette, and of these three the last is supreme. Much as I enjoy a friendly game, I abhor gambling. Yet, to appreciate the scene, we will seat ourselves between that old lady of seventy, and that flushed-faced girl of fifteen, and risk a few franc pieces. We will place on vert: rouge wins, and we have lost. Venture again on vert-bravo! won! Now, then, we will essay one grand risk on rouge: hist! how beautifully the ball flies round: do not be agitated-Vert! and we have lost all we intended to lose. I am glad of it, for we shall now be able to watch others playing. Aha! the dowager has won twenty Napoleons, and she does not conceal the tremulous exultation which palsies her aged frame. Yonder lovely girl, how anxiously she watches the whirling ball! she, too, has won, and a faint flush of vermillion passes over her perfect features. There is a throng, each venturing a trifle, and each feeling as though an empire depended on the throw. Look! look! the beautiful girl is receding from the table; she has lost all she could command. White as the painted column against which she leans, behold her frame agitated, her lips trembling, her eyes filmy and unmeaning. No soul beside ourselves is observing her; all are engaged in the hellish pursuit: she staggers to a sofa, and too proud to weep before a crowded saloon, is suffering tortures the most acute. Allons! let us fly the horrid scene- -a scene more resembling the painted sepulchre we read of, than any thing else I ever witnessed. Reader! you know as much of Spa as I do : and now to bed. Friday.-Spa has seen its best days, and its declining prosperity may be dated from 1808, when 200 houses were burned; a woful havoc ! for scarce half that number are now standing. When we were there it was full of English, many of whom were performing quarantine. Where the scenery of Spa is not improved' by smart alcoves and spruce rows of trimmed trees, it is beautiful; and for the benefit of such of my readers as may ruralize at this celebrated gossiping watering-place, I recommend the Hôtel d'Yorck, where an excellent table d'hôte is a daily matter of course. At the RETURN TO LIEGE. 55 one we sat down to, there were fifty dishes, and twenty plates of dessert. All this I ought to have told you yesterday, as at 5 o'clock this morning we were again travelling à la diligence, on our return to Liége. There were twelve passengers, and all English! I have nothing to say on our return, except that the scenery we so much admired yesterday, looked still more lovely, bathed, as it was, in dew and morning sunbeams. LIÉGE.-All the Belgic women are well-looking. We observed many to-day with sweet expressions, that would have served as models for Madonnas. Among the men, dram-drinking is prevalent to a great extent, even before breakfast, and very commonly, with coffee in the evening. Belgium and Holland are proverbially smoking countries-they out-do Germany; and I need say no more on that head. Our Belgic friend chaperoned us to the Royal Foundry-a poor affair, after having seen our own at Portsmouth and Pembroke. There were cannon. boring, and iron-sawing, and a few guns ready for use; among which were some made by order of Napoleon, during his usurpation. In the evening, our polite acquaintance introduced us to the Societé Militaire, where whist, dominoes, newspapers, and curaçoa, were the orders of the night. CHAPTER IX. VERVIERS-LIMBOURG-AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. PROCURED Our Bills of Health,' and bade adieu to Liége. Our road to Aix-la-Chapelle was the same for some leagues as that we had passed over in going to Spa. We followed the river Ourt to Verviers and Limbourg, the scenery of which improved as we ascended nearer to its source. Sometimes the stream rattled over its rocky bed close to the road-then it was half-hidden by thick belts of wood, glancing at intervals, like gleams of silver, over the velvet sward, and from between the green copses of hazel and birch. Rich masses of timber-trees thrived on either bank, and occasionally the wooded heights were broken into hollows, leading up far away into a country of glens and |