Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/163

 be different," said she. And I wondered if she had accidentally betrayed anything.

At Liposthey we struck the direct road, with good surface, from Bordeaux to Bayonne. Thus on through Labouheyre to Castets, still walled in with dark, balsamic forest, where we lunched. Just beyond, however, we found that we were bidding the pines farewell, and we were regretting them despite the beauty of the road—increasing every moment—when suddenly we had a great surprise. At what precise point it came I don't quite know, for I was snatched up out of the dull "flatland" of facts. Miss Randolph was driving, and I was glancing interestedly about, as an intelligent young man of the working-class may, when away to the left I saw up in the skies a long chain of blue, serrated mountains looking far too high to belong to this world. I started on my seat; then Miss Randolph saw what I saw. "Oh—h!" she breathed, with a responsive sigh of appreciation. Not an adjective; not a word. I blessed her for that. Unfortunately, Aunt Mary seized this moment to awake, and she did not spare us fireworks. She never does. She is one of those women who insist upon your knowing that they have a soul for beauty. But she went to sleep again when she had used up all her rockets, and left the Goddess and me alone with the Pyrenees. Much nearer Bayonne we had another surprise—a notice, in English, by the roadside: "To the Guards' Cemetery." An odd sign to come across in France, n'est ce pas, non brave? And just as I was calling up the past, Miss Randolph exclaimed: "I wonder if your