morning, I stopped to look at it with pleasure.

"Hey!" said my host, reading in my eyes the sparkling desires which
youth so ingenuously betrays, "so you scent from afar a pretty woman
as a dog scents game!"

I did not like the speech, but I asked the name of the castle and of
its owner.

"It is Clochegourde," he replied; "a pretty house belonging to the
Comte de Mortsauf, the head of an historic family in Touraine, whose
fortune dates from the days of Louis XI., and whose name tells the
story to which they owe their arms and their distinction. Monsieur de
Mortsauf is descended from a man who survived the gallows. The family
bear: Or, a cross potent and counter-potent sable, charged with a
fleur-de-lis or; and 'Dieu saulve le Roi notre Sire,' for motto. The
count settled here after the return of the emigration. The estate
belongs to his wife, a demoiselle de Lenoncourt, of the house of
Lenoncourt-Givry which is now dying out. Madame de Mortsauf is an only
daughter. The limited fortune of the family contrasts strangely with
the distinction of their names; either from pride, or, possibly, from
necessity, they never leave Clochegourde and see no company. Until now
their attachment to the Bourbons explained this retirement, but the
return of the king has not changed their way of living. When I came to
reside here last year I paid them a visit of courtesy; they returned
it and invited us to dinner; the winter separated us for some months,
and political events kept me away from Frapesle until recently. Madame
de Mortsauf is a woman who would hold the highest position wherever
she might be."