I slipped one day on the very slippery wooden steps leading from W.'s
little study to the passage. Baby did the same, and got a nasty fall
on the stone flags, so I asked W. if he would ask Ferdinand to put a
strip of carpet on the steps (there were only four). W. gave the
order, but no carpet appeared. He repeated it rather curtly. The old
Ferdinand made no answer, but grumbled to himself over his broom that
it was perfectly foolish and useless to put down a piece of carpet,
that for sixty years people and children, and babies, had walked down
those steps and no one had ever thought of asking for carpets. W. had
really rather to apologize and explain that his wife was nervous and
unused to such highly polished floors. However, we became great
friends afterward, Ferdinand and I, and when he understood how fond I
was of the château, he didn't mind my deranging the furniture a
little. Two grand pianos were a great trial to him. I think he would
have liked to put one on top of the other.

[Illustration: Ferdinand.]

The library, quite at one end of the house, separated from the
drawing-room we always sat in by a second large salon, was a
delightful, quiet resort when any one wanted to read or write. There
were quantities of books, French, English, and German--the classics in
all three languages, and a fine collection of historical memoirs.




II

COUNTRY VISITS