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 beech forest in Normandy, with pale pillars through which, in March, one saw the pale blue sea. It was there she took him first. Daffodils were scattered thickly along its aisles; the woodmen ranged their faggots; children's clear voices rang, and little Belot, the white-and-gold spaniel, ran with them, barking; for the forest was part of their home and half a mile away, at the top of its tapis vert, the high Louis Quatorze château, pale pink, pale grey, with pigeonniers set at each angle of its garden, watched over them. In the village, down in the valley, the peasants still wore coifs, crimped, winged, folded. Riding her dappled horse in a flowing skirt and plume, Maman passed along the golden edges of the plain. Old Blaise the farmer took them through the basse-cour to see the new litter of little pigs; so young that their tiny ears seemed braided back and tied behind, like the hair of demure little convent girls, though their eyes were already sharp and wise as they glanced up sideways, sucking at their happy mother. The farmer's daughter gave them fresh bread, and cream out of a great brown earthern pot; bread, pearl-coloured, glutinous, delicious, with a thick brown crust like the edge of thatch on one of the cottages. Irises grew along the thatchridges, and their roots, boiled with the linen, sent the breath of wafted violets through your dreams at night.

In the school-room sat the young literature master, stately, sad, and ridiculous, with a collar like Monsieur de Lamartine's. He would come to the salon after