amended by the magic of cheerful French industry
and thrift. The light had already begun to fade, and
my drive reminded me of a passage in some rural
novel of Madame Sand. I passed a couple of timber
and plaster churches, which looked very old, black,
and crooked, and had lumpish wooden porches and
galleries encircling the base. By the time I reached
Cheverny, the clear twilight had approached. It was
late to ask to be allowed to visit an inhabited house;
but it was the hour at which I like best to visit almost
anything. My coachman drew up before a gateway,
in a high wall, which opened upon a short avenue,
along which I took my way on foot; the coachmen in
those parts being, for reasons best known to them-
selves, mortally averse to driving up to a house. I
answered the challenge of a very tidy little portress,
who sat, in company with a couple of children, en-
joying the evening air in, front of her lodge, and who
told me to walk a little further and turn to the right.
I obeyed her to the letter, and my turn brought me
into sight of a house as charming as an old manor in
a fairy tale. I had but a rapid and partial view of
Cheverny; but that view was a glimpse of perfection.
A light, sweet mansion stood looking over a wide green
lawn, over banks of flowers and groups of trees. It
had a striking character of elegance, produced partly
by a series of Renaissance busts let into circular niches
in the facade. The place looked so private, so reserved,
that it seemed an act of violence to ring, a stranger
and foreigner, at the graceful door. But if I had not