windows--a table with all sorts of delicate little instruments. She
was book-binding--doing quite lovely things in imitation of the old
French binding. It was a work that required most delicate
manipulation, but she seemed to do it quite easily. I was rather
humiliated with my little knit petticoats--very hot work it is on a
blazing July day.




III

THE HOME OF LAFAYETTE


La Grange was looking its loveliest when I arrived the other day. It
was a bright, beautiful October afternoon and the first glimpse of the
château was most picturesque. It was all the more striking as the run
down from Paris was so ugly and commonplace. The suburbs of Paris
around the Gare de l'Est--the Plain of St. Denis and all the small
villages, with kitchen gardens, rows of green vegetables under glass
"cloches"--are anything but interesting. It was not until we got near
Gréty and alongside of Ferrières, the big Rothschild place, that we
seemed to be in the country. The broad green alleys of the park, with
the trees just changing a little, were quite charming. Our station was
Verneuil l'Etang, a quiet little country station dumped down in the
middle of the fields, and a drive of about fifty minutes brought us to
the château. The country is not at all pretty, always the same
thing--great cultivated fields stretching off on each side of the
road--every now and then a little wood or clump of trees. One does not