rung I should be unable to express - as it is such a
pleasure to do - my sense of the exceeding courtesy
with which this admirable house is shown. It was
near the dinner-hour, - the most sacred hour of the
day; but I was freely conducted into the inhabited
apartments. They are extremely beautiful. What I
chiefly remember is the charming staircase of white
embroidered stone, and the great _salle des gardes_ and
_chambre a coucher du roi_ on the second floor. Che-
verny, built in 1634, is of a much later date than the
other royal residences of this part of France; it be-
longs to the end of the Renaissance, and has a touch
of the rococo. The guard-room is a superb apartment;
and as it contains little save its magnificent ceiling
and fireplace and certain dim tapestries on its walls,
you the more easily take the measure of its noble
proportions. The servant opened the shutters of a
single window, and the last rays of the twilight slanted
into the rich brown gloom. It was in the same pic-
turesque fashion that I saw the bedroom (adjoining) of
Henry IV., where a legendary-looking bed, draped in
folds long unaltered, defined itself in the haunted
dusk. Cheverny remains to me a very charming, a
partly mysterious vision. I drove back to Blois in the
dark, some nine miles, through the forest of Russy,
which belongs to the State, and which, though con-
sisting apparently of small timber, looked under the
stars sufficiently vast and primeval. There was a damp
autumnal smell and the occasional sound of a stirring
thing; and as I moved through the evening air I