separated by gardens, by hedges of honeysuckle, clematis, and jasmine;
a dunghill beside each door, and cocks and hens about the road. Such
is the village of Pont-de-Ruan, a picturesque little hamlet leading up
to an old church full of character, a church of the days of the
Crusades, such a one as painters desire for their pictures. Surround
this scene with ancient walnut-trees and slim young poplars with their
pale-gold leaves; dot graceful buildings here and there along the
grassy slopes where sight is lost beneath the vaporous, warm sky, and
you will have some idea of one of the points of view of this most
lovely region.

I followed the road to Sache along the left bank of the river,
noticing carefully the details of the hills on the opposite shore. At
length I reached a park embellished with centennial trees, which I
knew to be that of Frapesle. I arrived just as the bell was ringing
for breakfast. After the meal, my host, who little suspected that I
had walked from Tours, carried me over his estate, from the borders of
which I saw the valley on all sides under its many aspects,--here
through a vista, there to its broad extent; often my eyes were drawn
to the horizon along the golden blade of the Loire, where the sails
made fantastic figures among the currents as they flew before the
wind. As we mounted a crest I came in sight of the chateau d'Azay,
like a diamond of many facets in a setting of the Indre, standing on
wooden piles concealed by flowers. Farther on, in a hollow, I saw the
romantic masses of the chateau of Sache, a sad retreat though full of
harmony; too sad for the superficial, but dear to a poet with a soul
in pain. I, too, came to love its silence, its great gnarled trees,
and the nameless mysterious influence of its solitary valley. But now,
each time that we reached an opening towards the neighboring slope
which gave to view the pretty castle I had first noticed in the