a bedstead with exquisitely clean bedding, in another a tiny cooking
stove. Vases of flowers, framed pictures and ornamental quicksilver
balls had been found place for, this bargewoman's home aptly
illustrating Shakespeare's adage--"Order gives all things view." The
brisk, weather-beaten mistress now came up, no little gratified by our
interest and our praises.

"You ladies would perhaps like to make a little journey with me?" she
asked, "nothing easier, we start to-morrow morning at six o'clock for
Nevers, you could take the train back."

Never perhaps in our lives had myself and my companion received an
invitation so out of the way, so bewilderingly tempting! And we felt
too, with a pang, that never again in all probability should we receive
such another. But on this especial day we were not staying at Moret,
only running over for the afternoon from our headquarters at Bourron.
Acceptance was thus hemmed round with small impediments. And by way of
consolation, next morning the glorious weather broke. A downpour
recalling our own lakeland would anyhow have kept us ashore.

"Another time then!" had said the kind hostess of the barge at parting.
She seemed as sorry as ourselves that the little project she had mooted
so cordially could not be carried out.

The Loing canal joins the Seine at Saint Mammes, a few kilometres lower
down, continuing its course of thirty kilometres to Bleneau in the
Nievre. Canal life in Eastern France is a characteristic feature, the
whole region being intersected by a network of waterways, those _chemins
qui marchent_, or walking roads as Michelet picturesquely calls them.
And strolling on the banks of the canal here you may be startled by an