'Will you take a little walk with Alain, Mervyn, and me?'

'Certainly, Mademoiselle.'

'Very well; bring your sketch-book.'

ORP

I made haste to come down, and ran towards her on the bank of the stream.

'Ah!' said the young girl, laughing, 'you are in a good humor this morning, it seems.'

I muttered awkwardly some confused words, intended to intimate that I was always in a good humor, which Mlle. Marguérite seemed not to believe very firmly; and then I jumped into the boat and took a seat by her side.

'Row on, Alain,' said she immediately; and old Alain, who piques himself on being a masterly boatman, began to take methodical strokes with the oars, which gave him the look of a heavy bird trying in vain to fly away. Then Mlle. Marguérite continued: 'I am actually obliged

to come and fetch you from your tower, as you have been obstinately sulking these two days.'

'I assure you, Mademoiselle, nothing but discretion-respectfear - ?

'Oh! heavens! respect fear. You were sulking, that's what it was. Positively we are too good for you. My mother, who insists upon it, I do n't clearly know why, that we ought to treat you with a very distinguished consideration, begged me to immolate myself on the altar of your pride, and, like an obedient daughter, I immolate myself.'

I frankly expressed my lively gratitude.

'Not to do things by halves,' she went on, I resolved to give you a treat that would suit you: so here is a fine summer morning for you, wood and glades with all the desirable effects of light and shade, birds singing under the leaves, a mysterious boat gliding over the water. You who like stories of that kind, you must be pleased?'

'I am enchanted, Mademoiselle.'

'Oh! that is not unlucky.'

I found myself, in fact, for the moment pretty contented with my lot. The two banks between which we were gliding, were strewn with newly-cut hay which perfumed the air. I saw retreating all around us the dark avenues of the park, pierced with lines of brightness by the morning sun; millions of insects were intoxicating themselves with dew in flower-cups, humming gayly the while. Before me was old Alain, at every stroke of the oars smiling on me with an air of satisfaction and protection: still nearer sat Mlle. Marguérite, contrary to her custom dressed in white; beautiful, fresh, and pure, she took away with one hand the dewy pearls which the early hour hung around the lace of her hat, and offered the other as a bait to the faithful Mervyn, who was swimming after us. Truly, I should not have needed very much entreaty to go to the world's end in that little white boat.

As we were leaving the limits of the park, passing through one of the arches that pierced the boundary wall, the young Creole said to me: You don't ask me where I am leading you, Sir?'

'No, no, Mademoiselle, it is all the same to me.'

'I am leading you into fairy-land.'

'I suspected it.'

'Mlle. Hélouin, who is more competent to speak of poetical matters than I am, ought to have told you that the clumps of wood which cover the country for twenty leagues round, are all that remain of the old forest of Brocélyande, where the ancestors of your friend Mlle. de Porhoët, the kings of Gaël, used to hunt, and where the grandfather of Mervyn here, enchanter as he was, was enchanted by a king's daugh ter named Viviane. Now we shall soon be in the very heart of the

forest. And if that is not enough to excite your imagination, know that these woods still preserve a thousand traces of the mysterious religion of the Celts; they are paved with them. You have the right therefore to fancy under each of these shady places a white-robed druid, and to see a golden sickle shining in every ray of the sun. The worship of those unendurable old men has even left near here, on a site that is lonely, romantic, picturesque, et cetera, a monument, at the sight of which persons given to ecstasy generally faint away; I thought it would give you pleasure to draw it, and, as the place is not easy to find, I resolved to serve as your guide, asking nothing in return, except that you will spare me any outbursts of an enthusiasm in which I can not join.'

'Very good, Mademoiselle, I will restrain myself.'

'I beg you will! '

'That is understood. And what do you call this monument?

'I call it a heap of big stones: antiquaries call it, some simply a dolmen, others, who are more pretentious, a cromlech; the countrypeople call it, without explaining why, the migourdit,' *

Meanwhile we were gently following the course of the stream, between two lines of dewy meadow-land; small cattle, mostly black, and with long sharp horns, rose here and there at the sound of the oars, and watched our passage with a fierce gaze. The valley, down which the stream meandered, widening in its course, was shut in on both sides by a chain of hills, covered, some with furze and dry broom, some with verdant under-wood. From time to time, we crossed a ravine which opened out between two slopes a winding prospect, in the depth of which was to be seen the rounded blue summit of a distant mountain. Mlle. Marguérite, spite of her 'incompetence,' did not fail to direct my attention to the several charms of this sweet and rugged landscape, not omitting, however, to accompany every remark with an ironical exception.

By this time a dull, continuous sound had begun to announce to us that we were probably near a water-fall, when suddenly the valley closed up, and assumed the appearance of a wild and sequestered gorge. On the left rose a high wall of moss-covered rock; oaks and firs, intermingled with hanging ivy and briers, stood in the chinks even up to the top of the cliff, casting a mysterious shade on the deeper water which bathed the rocks below. Before us, at the distance of a few hundred paces, the waters boiled, foamed, and suddenly disappeared; while the broken line of the river stood out through a whitish smoke, against a distant back-ground of obscure verdure. On our right, the bank opposite the cliff now presented only a narrow strip

*In the wood of Cadoudal, department of Morbihan.

of steep meadow, to which the thickly-wooded hills gave a fringe of sombre velvet.

'Pull to the bank!' said the Creole. While Alain made the boat fast to the branches of a willow, she continued, springing out lightly on the grass: 'Well, Sir, you don't feel uncomfortable? You are not upset, petrified, thunder-struck? And yet they say this place is very pretty. For my part, I like it because it is always cool here. But follow me into the wood-if - and I will show you these famous stones.'

dare you

Mlle. Marguérite, lively, nimble, and gay, as I had never seen her before, crossed the meadow-land at two bounds, and took a path which buried itself among the thick trees as it ascended the slope. Alain and I followed her in Indian file. After a few minutes' quick walking, our guide stopped, seemed to consult with herself for a moment, and to be finding the right way; then, deliberately parting two entangled boughs she left the beaten path, and struck directly into the under-wood. The journey then became less agreeable. It was very hard to force one's way through the already sturdy young oaks, of which this underwood was composed, their sloping trunks and thick-leaved boughs interlacing like Robinson Crusoe's hedge. At any rate, Alain and I got on with difficulty, bent double, hitting our heads at every step, and bringing down, at each of our heavy movements, a shower of dew on us; but Mlle. Marguérite, with the greater address and cat-like suppleness of her sex, glided without apparent effort through the openings in the labyrinth, laughing at our sufferings and carelessly letting fly back behind her the flexible branches, which would hit us in the eyes.

We reached at length a very narrow open space, which seems to crown the summit of the hill, and there I perceived, not without emotion, a gloomy and monstrous table of stone, supported by five or six enormous blocks, which are half buried in the ground, and form there a cavern, truly full of religious terror. At first sight, there is in this uninjured monument of almost fabulous times and of primitive religions, a power of truth, a sort of real presence, which seizes the soul and makes one shiver. A few rays of sunlight, penetrating the foliage, filtered through the disjointed rows of stone, played on the gloomy slab above, and lent an idyllic grace to this barbarous altar. Mlle. Marguérite herself seemed pensive and absorbed. As for me, after penetrating into the cavern, and examining the dolmen on all sides, I set about the task of drawing it.

I had been absorbed in this work for about ten minutes, paying no attention to what might be going on around, when Mlle. Marguerite said to me suddenly: 'Would you like a Velleda to give life to the picture?'