Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/152

 with the brown wooden cabins of the oyster fishers. It seemed like coming to the end of the world.

Slowing down a little, we followed a raised causeway that skirted the edge of the Bassin, and presently entered upon a long, straight street—one of the oddest streets you have ever seen, one whole side of it (that next the sea) being composed of fantastic bungalows and pleasure-houses of all imaginable styles, each set in its own garden, and the whole town drowned in an ocean of pines. At the outskirts I took the helm again, for Miss Randolph scarcely trusts her skill in traffic. Not that there was enough to be alarming in Arcachon, for the place seemed under a spell of silence. We drove through the long main street, past an imposing white château and a good many quite charming houses, until we came to a hotel which the Goddess fancied, and turned into a garden. I'd never been to Arcachon before, and supposed from the guide-books that this was the place for "my ladies" (as the couriers say) to stop. But the landlady came out, and welcoming us with one breath, recommended us with the next to their winter house in the forest. This place, looking over the sea, was for summer; the other was now more agreeably sheltered.

The "house in the forest" sounded well in the ears of the Goddess, so we drove off to find it, according to the directions of Madame Feras. The Napier spun us up a steep, winding road into a charming garden surrounding an Alhambra sort of place, which Aunt Mary thought "real gay," being bitterly disappointed to find it was not our hotel, but Arcachon's