waters and return to our first youth?"

"The magic spring!" laughed Mme. Hellard. "You will find it at the back
of the church. I have drunk of its waters, certainly; on a very hot day
last summer. They refreshed me, but I still feel myself mortal."

"Ah, yes," cried Monsieur, "the waters of Lethe and the elixir vitæ have
equally to be discovered. I imagine that they belong to Paradise--and we
have lost Paradise, you know: though I have found my Eve," added
Monsieur, with a gallant bow to his cara sposa; "and have been in
Paradise ever since."

"_You_, apparently, have found and drunk of the waters of Lethe,"
laughed Madame. "You forget all our numerous quarrels and
disagreements."

"Thunderstorms are said to clear the air," returned Monsieur; "but ours
have been mere summer lightning. That, you know, is not dangerous, and
beautifies the horizon."

It was the day of our visit to St. Jean du Doigt, and we had seriously
fallen out with our coachman by the way. St. Jean had so charmed us that
we felt reluctant to leave it. The little inn, quiet and solitary, with
its windows open to the sunshine, its snow-white cloth, its wealth of
creeper and blossom trailing up the walls and sunning over the roof,
invited us to enter and be happy; to revel in the outer scene, sylvan,
rustic, ecclesiastical, an overflow of the beauties of earth, sky,
sunshine and ancient architecture. Here was an earthly paradise; it
might still be ours for some golden moments. Yet we threw away our
opportunity; as we so often do in life in far weightier matters than