from the railway, is an unattractive place.

"Is this Madame's first visit to Lacville?" asked her fellow-traveller,
helping her out of the railway carriage. "If so, Madame would doubtless
like to make her way to the lake. Would she care to accompany us
thither?"

Sylvia hesitated. She almost felt inclined to go back to Paris by the
next train. She told herself that there was no hope of finding Anna in
such a large place, and that it was unlikely that this dreary-looking
town would offer anything in the least pleasant or amusing on a very
hot day.

But "It will be enchanting by the lake!" she heard some one say eagerly.
And this chance remark made up her mind for her. After all, she might as
well go and see the lake, of which everyone who mentioned Lacville spoke
so enthusiastically.

Down the whole party swept along a narrow street, bordered by high white
houses, shabby cafés, and little shops. Quite a crowd had left the
station, and they were all now going the same way.

A turn in the narrow street, and Sylvia uttered a low cry of pleasure and
astonishment!

Before her, like a scene in a play when the curtain is rung up, there
suddenly appeared an immense sunlit expanse of water, fringed by high
trees, and bordered by quaint, pretty châlets and villas, fantastic in
shape, and each surrounded by a garden, which in many cases ran down to
the edge of the lake.