on the village. Our own rooms looked upon our own garden, and upon the
church and Franciscan convent beyond. In the warm dusk, when all was still,
and my father used to sit smoking his meerschaum by the open window, we
could hear the low pealing of the chapel-organ, and the monks chanting
their evening litanies.

A happy time--a pleasant, peaceful place! Ah me! how long ago!




2


A whole delightful Summer and Autumn went by thus, and my new home seemed
more charming with every change of season. First came the gathering of the
golden harvest; then the joyous vintage-time, when the wine-press creaked
all day in every open cellar along the village street, and long files of
country carts came down from the hills in the dusk evenings, laden with
baskets and barrels full of white and purple grapes. And then the long
avenues and all the woods of Bruehl put on their Autumn robes of crimson,
and flame-colour, and golden brown; and the berries reddened in the hedges;
and the Autumn burned itself away like a gorgeous sunset; and November came
in grey and cold, like the night-time of the year.

I was so happy, however, that I enjoyed even the dull November. I loved the
bare avenues carpeted with dead and rustling leaves--the solitary
gardens--the long, silent afternoons and evenings when the big logs
crackled on the hearth, and my father smoked his pipe in the chimney
corner. We had no such wood-fires at Aunt Martha Baur's in those dreary old