standing on wooden piles concealed by flowers.  Farther on, in a hollow, I saw the romantic masses of the chateau of Sache, a sad retreat though full of harmony; too sad for the superficial, but dear to a poet with a soul in pain.  I, too, came to love its silence, its great gnarled trees, and the nameless mysterious influence of its solitary valley.  But now, each time that we reached an opening towards the neighboring slope which gave to view the pretty castle I had first noticed in the morning, I stopped to look at it with pleasure.

“Hey!” said my host, reading in my eyes the sparkling desires which youth so ingenuously betrays, “so you scent from afar a pretty woman as a dog scents game!”

I did not like the speech, but I asked the name of the castle and of its owner.

“It is Clochegourde,” he replied; “a pretty house belonging to the Comte de Mortsauf, the head of an historic family in Touraine, whose fortune dates from the days of Louis XI., and whose name tells the story to which they owe their arms and their distinction.  Monsieur de Mortsauf is descended from a man who survived the gallows.  The family bear:  Or, a cross potent and counter-potent sable, charged with a fleur-de-lis or; and ‘Dieu saulve le Roi notre Sire,’ for motto.  The count settled here after the return of the emigration.  The estate belongs to his wife, a demoiselle de Lenoncourt, of the house of Lenoncourt-Givry which is now dying out.  Madame de Mortsauf is an only daughter.  The limited fortune of the family contrasts strangely with the distinction of their names; either from pride, or, possibly, from necessity, they never leave Clochegourde and see no company.  Until now their attachment to the Bourbons explained this retirement, but the return of the king has not changed their way of living.  When I came to reside here last year I paid them a visit of courtesy; they returned it and invited us to dinner; the winter separated us for some months, and political events kept me away from Frapesle until recently.  Madame de Mortsauf is a woman who would hold the highest position wherever she might be.”

“Does she often come to Tours?”

“She never goes there.  However,” he added, correcting himself, “she did go there lately to the ball given to the Duc d’Angouleme, who was very gracious to her husband.”

“It was she!” I exclaimed.

“She! who?”

“A woman with beautiful shoulders.”

“You will meet a great many women with beautiful shoulders in Touraine,” he said, laughing.  “But if you are not tired we can cross the river and call at Clochegourde and you shall renew acquaintance with those particular shoulders.”