Sylvia was in the mood to enjoy every new experience, however trifling, and she had never been in a French private house.

“Au Chalet des Muguets,” called out Madame Wachner to the driver.

He nodded and turned his horse round.

Soon they were making their way along newly-made roads, cut through what had evidently been, not so very long before, a great stretch of forest land.

“The good people of Lacville are in a hurry to make money,” observed Madame Wachner in French.  “I am told that land here has nearly trebled in value the last few years, though houses are still cheap.”

“It seems a pity they should destroy such beautiful woods,” said Sylvia regretfully, remembering what the Comte de Virieu had said only that morning.

The other shrugged her shoulders, “I do not care for scenery—­no, not at all!” she exclaimed complacently.

The carriage drew up with a jerk before a small white gate set in low, rough, wood palings.  Behind the palings lay a large, straggling, and untidy garden, relieved from absolute ugliness by some high forest trees which had been allowed to remain when the house in the centre of the plot of ground was built.

Madame Wachner stepped heavily out of the carriage, and Sylvia followed her, feeling amused and interested.  She wondered very much what the inside of the funny little villa she saw before her would be like.  In any case, the outside of the Chalet des Muguets was almost ludicrously unlike the English houses to which she was accustomed.

Very strange, quaint, and fantastic looked the one-storey building, standing far higher than any bungalow Sylvia had ever seen, in a lawn of high, rank grass.

The walls of the Chalet des Muguets were painted bright pink, picked out with sham brown beams, which in their turn were broken at intervals by large blue china lozenges, on which were painted the giant branches of lilies-of-the-valley which gave the villa its inappropriate name!

The chocolate-coloured row of shutters were now closed to shut out the heat, for the sun beat down pitilessly on the little house, and the whole place had a curiously deserted, unlived-in appearance.

Sylvia secretly wondered how the Wachners could bear to leave the garden, which might have been made so pretty with a little care, in such a state of neglect and untidiness.  Even the path leading up to the side of the house, where jutted out a mean-looking door, was covered with weeds.

But Madame Wachner was evidently very pleased with her temporary home, and quite satisfied with its surroundings.

“It is a pretty ’ouse, is it not?” she asked in English, and smiling broadly.  “And only one thousand francs, furnished, for the ’ole season!”

Sylvia quickly made a mental calculation.  Forty pounds?  Yes, she supposed that was very cheap—­for Lacville.