Our drive back was rather shorter, downhill almost all the way, the horses going along at a good steady trot, knowing they were going home.

When we drew up at our own door Hubert remarked respectfully that he thought it was the first time that Madame and Mademoiselle had ever been received by a lady in sabots.

We wondered afterward if she had personally attended to the cow—­in the way of poulticing or rubbing it.  She certainly didn’t wash her hands afterward, and it rather reminded me of one of Charles de Bunsen’s stories when he was Secretary of Legation at Turin.  In the summer they took a villa in the country just out of the town and had frequent visitors to lunch or dinner.  One day two of their friends, Italians, had spent the whole day with them; had walked in the garden, picked fruit and flowers, played with the child and the dogs and the pony, and as they were coming back to the house for dinner, Charles suggested that they might like to come up to his dressing-room and wash their hands before dinner—­to which one of them replied, “Grazie, non mi sporco facilmente” (literal translation, “Thanks, I don’t dirty myself easily"), and declined the offer of soap and water.

* * * * *

We paid two or three visits one year to the neighbouring chateaux, and had one very pleasant afternoon at the Chateau de Pinon, belonging to the Courval family.  W. had known the late proprietor, the Vicomte de Courval, very well.  They had been colleagues of the Conseil General of the Aisne, were both very fond of the country and country life, and used to have long talks in the evening, when the work of the day was over, about plantation, cutting down trees, preservation of game, etc.  Without these talks, I think W. would have found the evenings at the primitive little Hotel de la Hure, at Laon, rather tedious.

The chateau is not very old and has no historic interest.  It was built by a Monsieur du Bois, Vicomte de Courval, at the end of the seventeenth century.  He lived at first in the old feudal chateau of which nothing now remains.  Already times were changing—­the thick walls, massive towers, high, narrow windows, almost slits, and deep moat, which were necessary in the old troubled days, when all isolated chateaux might be called upon, at any time, to defend themselves from sudden attack, had given way to the larger and more spacious residences of which Mansard, the famous architect of Louis XIV, has left so many chefs d’oeuvre.  It was to Mansard that M. de Courval confided the task of building the chateau as it now stands, while the no less famous Le Notre was charged to lay out the park and gardens.