STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS

FRANCE



CONTENTS:

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT by R. L. Stevenson
A LEAF IN THE STORM by Ouida
A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED by Wilkie Collins
MICHEL LORIO'S CROSS by Hesba
Stretton A PERILOUS AMOUR by Stanley J. Weyman





A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT, By Robert Louis Stevenson


It was late in November, 1456. The snow fell over Paris with rigorous,
relentless persistence; sometimes the wind made a sally and scattered
it in flying vortices; sometimes there was a lull, and flake after flake
descended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous, interminable.
To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows, it seemed a wonder
where it all came from. Master Francis Villon had propounded an
alternative that afternoon, at a tavern window: was it only pagan
Jupiter plucking geese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels moulting?
He was only a poor Master of Arts, he went on; and as the question