Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/117

 more we were at the door of our hotel, and I really was asking myself if I had dreamed it.

"Brown," said I, "I told you once before that you were a leather angel. Now I believe you are a grey tweed Genie. This has been the nicest morning of my life. But you really must tell me how much you paid that custodian, and let me give you back the money at once."

He interrupted himself in the midst of a beaming smile to wrinkle his eyebrows together. "It's been a nice morning for me, too, miss," said he quite humbly; "but it will half spoil it if you won't let it stand as it is. It was only a few francs, and as you pay me a good screw, I can well afford it. You're always so good, that I know you'd be sorry to hurt my feelings."

Well, of course I would; so I couldn't say any more, could I? Though before all these motor-car wonders began it would have felt odd to take a "treat" from one's servant.

Now, Dad, I'm getting conscience-stricken, and keep wondering with every paragraph (especially what I call my "descriptive" paragraphs) if I'm boring you. I won't give you our daily programme en masse. I'll just sum things up by saying that we've simply lived, moved, and had our being in, on, or at castles. This country of the Loire is a sort of fairyland, where everybody had a castle, or at the very least a lordly dwelling-place that was more fortress than private house. You can't look up or down the river but that on every hill you see a château, with enough history clustering about it to