Willing enough to accept this cheerful view, I flourished an imaginary autograph upon the air with the end of my cane, and laughingly dismissed the subject.

We then strolled back through the wood, treading the soft moss under our feet, startling the brown lizards from our path and the squirrels from the lower branches of the great trees, and, now and then, surprising a plump little green frog, which went skipping away into the long grass, like an animated emerald.  Coming back to the gardens, we next lingered for some time upon the terrace, admiring the superb panorama of undulating woodland and cultivated champaign, which, seen through the golden haze of afternoon, stretched out in glory to the remotest horizon.  To our right stood the prison-like chateau, flinging back the sunset from its innumerable casements, and seeming to drink in the warm glow at every pore of its old, red bricks.  To our left, all lighted up against the sky, rose the lofty tree-tops of the forest which we had just quitted.  Our shadows stretched behind us across the level terrace, like the shadows of giants.  Involuntarily, we dropped our voices.  It would have seemed almost like profanity to speak aloud while the first influence of that scene was upon us.

Going on presently towards the verge of the terrace, we came upon an artist who, with his camp-stool under his arm, and his portfolio at his feet, was, like ourselves, taking a last look at the sunset before going away.  As we approached, he turned and recognised us.  It was Herr Franz Mueller, the story-telling student of the Chicards club.

“Good-afternoon, gentlemen,” said he, lifting his red cap, and letting it fall back again a little on one side.  “We do not see many such sunsets in the course of the summer.”

“Indeed, no,” replied Dalrymple; “and ere long the autumn tints will be creeping over the landscape, and the whole scene will assume a different character.  Have you been sketching in the forest?”

“No—­I have been making a study of the chateau and terrace from this point, with the landscape beyond.  It is for an historical subject which I have laid out for my winter’s work.”

And with this, he good-naturedly opened his folio and took out the sketch, which was a tolerably large one, and represented the scene under much the same conditions of light as we now saw it.

“I shall have a group of figures here,” he said, pointing to a spot on the terrace, “and a more distant one there; with a sprinkling of dogs and, perhaps, a head or two at an open window of the chateau.  I shall also add a flag flying on the turret, yonder.”

“A scene, I suppose, from the life of Louis the Thirteenth,” I suggested.

“No—­I mean it for the exiled court of James the Second,” replied he.  “And I shall bring in the King, and Mary of Modena, and the Prince their son, who was afterwards the Pretender.”

“It is a good subject,” said Dalrymple.  “You will of course find excellent portraits of all these people at Versailles; and a lively description of their court, mode of life, and so forth, if my memory serves me correctly, in the tales of Anthony, Count Hamilton.  But with all this, I dare say, you are better acquainted than I.”