the garden. When the eight o'clock bell begins to swing he will leave
his lettuces and soon perch himself on the little platform behind his
shabby old desk in the dingy schoolroom, which even in the holidays
cannot get rid of its ancient redolence of boys. The school-house, now
so much like a prison, was once a mansion, and the most modern part of
it is of the period which we should call in England Tudor. A Gothic
doorway leads into a hall arched and groined, the inner wall being the
bare rock, as is the case with most of the houses at Roc-Amadour. A
gutter cut in the stone floor to carry off the drippings formed by the
condensation of the air upon the cold surface shows that these
half-rock dwellings have their drawbacks.

I leave Roc-Amadour and take my way up the valley. Nature has now
reached all that can be attained in vernal pride and beauty here. In a
little while she will have put on the careworn look of the Southern
summer. Many a plant now in splendid bloom, animated by the spirit of
loveliness that presides over the law of reproduction, will soon be
casting its seed and bringing its brief destiny to a close. Now all is
coquetry, beauty, and ravishment. The rock-hiving bees, unconscious
instruments of a great purpose, are yellow with pollen and laden with
honey. They find more, infinitely more, nectar than they can carry
away. The days are long, and every hour is full of joy. But already
the tide is at the turn. The nightingale's rapturous song has become a
lazy twitter; the bird has done with courtship; it has a family in
immediate prospect, if not one already screaming for food, and the
musician has half lost his passion for music. It will come again next
year. How swiftly all this life and colour of spring passes away! So
much to be looked at and so little time!

This narrow strip of meadow that winds along the bottom of the gorge