A caravan, which in addition to shirts and stockings could have carried about one's books and writing tackle would have seemed the _summum bonum_ of human felicity.
So we turned our backs on London without a thought of regret and once again "took the road;" but this time separately, my mother going to my sister at Penrith and I to pass the summer months in wanderings in Picardy, Lorraine, and French Flanders, and the ensuing winter in Paris.
I hardly know which was the pleasanter time.

By this time I was no stranger to Paris, and had many friends there.

It was my first experiment of living there as a bachelor, as I was going to say, but I mean "on my own hook," and left altogether to my own devices.

I found of course that my then experiences differed considerably from those acquired when living _en famille_.

But I am disposed to think that the tolerably intimate knowledge I flatter myself I possessed of the Paris and Parisians of Louis Philippe's time was mainly the result of this second residence.