more charming than ever; and the little peaceful, lazy
Cher, where two or three men were fishing in the
eventide, flowed under the clear arches and between
the solid pedestals of the part that spanned it, with
the softest, vaguest light on its bosom. This was the
right perspective; we were looking across the river of
time. The whole scene was deliciously mild. The
moon came up; we passed back through the gallery
and strolled about a little longer in the gardens. It
was very still. I met my old gondolier in the twilight.
He showed me his gondola; but I hated, somehow, to
see it there. I don't like, as the French say, to _meler
les genres_. A gondola in a little flat French river?
The image was not less irritating, if less injurious, than
the spectacle of a steamer in the Grand Canal, which
had driven me away from Venice a year and a half
before. We took our way back to the Grand Monarque,
and waited in the little inn-parlor for a late train to
Tours. We were not impatient, for we had an ex-
cellent dinner to occupy us; and even after we had
dined we were still content to sit awhile and exchange
remarks upon, the superior civilization of France.
Where else, at a village inn, should we have fared so
well? Where else should we have sat down to our
refreshment without condescension? There were two
or three countries in which it would not have been
happy for us to arrive hungry, on a Sunday evening,
at so modest an hostelry. At the little inn at Chenon-
ceaux the _cuisine_ was not only excellent, but the ser-
vice was graceful. We were waited on by mademoiselle