gardeners look for in laying out the boundaries of princely estates.

And Rene du Treilles suddenly exclaimed:

"I love this soil; I have my very roots in it."

He was a pure Norman, tall and strong, with a slight paunch, and of the
old race of adventurers who went to found kingdoms on the shores of every
ocean. He was about fifty years of age, ten years less perhaps than the
farmer who was driving us.

The latter was a lean peasant, all skin and bone, one of those men who
live a hundred years.

After two hours' travelling over stony roads, across that green and
monotonous plain, the vehicle entered one of those orchard farmyards and
drew up before in old structure falling into decay, where an old
maid-servant stood waiting beside a young fellow, who took charge of the
horse.

We entered the farmhouse. The smoky kitchen was high and spacious. The
copper utensils and the crockery shone in the reflection of the hearth. A
cat lay asleep on a chair, a dog under the table. One perceived an odor
of milk, apples, smoke, that indescribable smell peculiar to old
farmhouses; the odor of the earth, of the walls, of furniture, the odor
of spilled stale soup, of former wash-days and of former inhabitants, the
smell of animals and of human beings combined, of things and of persons,
the odor of time, and of things that have passed away.

I went out to have a look at the farmyard. It was very large, full of