“I knew you would be charmed with St. Jean-du-Doigt,” said Madame Hellard; “everyone is so. Le paysage est si riant.  A pity you could not be there for the Pardon.”

We hardly agreed with her.

“I assure you,” she continued, “seen from the tower, where you are removed from the crowd and the beggars and the sick folk, it is most interesting and picturesque.  Am I not right, cher ami?” turning to her husband.

“You are always right,” replied Monsieur gallantly.

“Oh, that is prejudice,” laughed Madame.  “But le Pardon of St Jean-du-Doigt, with its procession winding up the hill, its bonfire, its religious observances, is quite exceptionally interesting.  I am sure when I saw the dragon go off from the tower and set fire to the bucher, and heard the charge of musketry and roll of drums, I could have thrown myself off the platform with emotion.”

“A mercy for me you did not,” replied our host, who was evidently in a very amiable mood that morning.  The fair was over and many had left the hotel, and he had more time for repose.

“I hope monsieur has come back with an appetite,” said Catherine, referring to H.C., when we had taken our seats at the table d’hote.  We were early, and the first in the room.  “It is of no use running about the country and exhausting our fresh air if one is to remain as thin as a leg of a stork and as pale as Pierrot.”

[Illustration:  MAKING PANCAKES AT THE REGATTA.]

“Where is our vis-a-vis?” we asked, pointing to the empty chair opposite and the very conspicuous vacuum it presented.

“He is gone, thank goodness—­with last year’s swallows,” cried Catherine.  “But, alas, he will come back again—­like the swallows.  Some people bear a charmed life.”

“You will find him improved, perhaps.”

“Enlarged,” retorted Catherine, “and with a more capacious appetite—­if that be possible; that will be the only change.  They say there are limits to all things—­I shall never believe it now.”

And then the few who were now in the hotel came in, and dinner began; and Catherine’s presence filled the room, cap streamers seemed floating about in all directions; and her voice was every now and then heard proclaiming LA SUITE.

And later on, in the darkness, we went out according to our custom, and revelled in the old-world streets, the latticed windows, still lighted up, waiting for the curfew—­real or figurative, public or domestic.  For we all have our curfews, only they are not proclaimed from some ancient tower; and, alas, they are, like Easter, a movable institution; whereby it comes to pass that we too often waste the midnight oil and burn the candle at both ends, and before our time fall into the “sere and yellow leaf.”

ACROSS THE RIVER.