Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/114

96 time of the Revolution, it was spared out of respect to her, and is still a charming relic of the past.

The ladies went down the mossy steps, leading from the gallery to the further shore, and, lying under the oaks, wiled away the noon-time by re-peopling the spot with the shapes that used to inhabit it. A very happy hour it was, dreaming there by the little river, with the scent of new-mown hay in the fresh wind, and before them the airy towers and gables of the old château rising from the stream like a vision of departed splendor, love, and romance.

Having seen every thing, and bought photographs ad libitum of the wooden-faced lisper, who cheated awfully, the pilgrims drove away, satiated with relics, royalty, and "regardez."

Another night in the stony-hearted, orange-colored rooms, with the sleepless garçon sweeping and murmuring outside like a Banshee, while the hens roosted sociably in the gallery, the horses seemed to be champing directly under the bed, and the dead Huguenots bumping down upon the roof from the castle-walls. Another curious meal wafted from the bowels of the earth and cooled by all the airs that blow,—then the shawl-straps were girded anew, the