id girl, with a tamborine, composed the group.
Their faces bore that unfeeling stamp, which springs from depravity and
degradation. When we had walked somewhat more than a mile, we overtook a
little girl, who was crying bitterly. By her features, from which the
fresh beauty of childhood had not been worn, and the steel triangle
which was tied to her belt, we knew she belonged to the family we had
passed. Her dress was thin and ragged and a pair of wooden shoes but ill
protected her feet from the sharp cold. I stopped and asked her why she
cried, but she did not at first answer. However, by questioning, I found
her unfeeling parents had sent her on without food; she was sobbing with
hunger and cold. Our pockets were full of bread and cheese which we had
bought for breakfast, and we gave her half a loaf, which stopped her
tears at once. She looked up and thanked us, smiling; and sitting down
on a bank, began to eat as if half famished.

The physiognomy of this region is very singular. It appears as if the
country had been originally a vast elevated plain, and some great power
had _scooped_ out, as with a hand, deep circular valleys all over its
surface. In winding along the high ridges, we often looked down, on
either side, into such hollows, several miles in diameter, and sometimes
entirely covered with vineyards. At La Rochepot, a quaint, antique
village, lying in the bottom of one of these dells, we saw the finest
ruin of the middle ages that I have met with in France. An American lady
had spoken to me of it in Rome, and I believe Willis mentions it in his
"Pencillings," but it is not described in the guide books, nor could we
learn what feudal lord had ever dwelt in its halls. It covers the summit
of a stately rock, at whose foot the village is crouched, and the green
ivy climbs up to the very top of its gray towers.

As the road makes a wide curve around the side of the hill, we descended
to the village by the nearer foot-path, and passed among its low, old
houses, with their pointed gables and mossy roofs. The path led close
along the foot of the rock, and we climbed up to the ruin, and stood in
its grass-grown courtyard. Only the outer walls and the round towers at
each corner are left remaining; the inner part has been razed to the
ground, and where proud barons once marshalled their vassals, the
villagers now play their holiday games. On one side, several Gothic
windows are left standing, perfect, though of simpl