d make the ampitheatre habitable, give vistas through
which some estates can see the city, or the river, or the sea. Instead
of rising to an actual peak, the hill ends abruptly in a cliff. At the
end of the street which follows the line of the summit, ravines appear
in which a few villages are clustered (Sainte-Adresse and two or three
other Saint-somethings) together with several creeks which murmur and
flow with the tides of the sea. These half-deserted slopes of Ingouville
form a striking contrast to the terraces of fine villas which overlook
the valley of the Seine. Is the wind on this side too strong for
vegetation? Do the merchants shrink from the cost of terracing it?
However this may be, the traveller approaching Havre on a steamer is
surprised to find a barren coast and tangled gorges to the west of
Ingouville, like a beggar in rags beside a perfumed and sumptuously
apparelled rich man.

In 1829 one of the last houses looking toward the sea, and which in
all probability stands about the centre of the Ingouville to-day, was
called, and perhaps is still called, "the Chalet." Originally it was a
porter's lodge with a trim little garden in front of it. The owner of
the villa to which it belonged,--a mansion with park, gardens, aviaries,
hot-houses, and lawns--took a fancy to put the little dwelling more in
keeping with the splendor of his own abode, and he reconstructed it on
the model of an ornamental cottage. He divided this cottage from his own
lawn, which was bordered and set with flower-beds and formed the terrace
of his villa, by a low wall along which he planted a concealing hedge.
Behind the cottage (called, in spite of all his efforts to prevent it,
the Chalet) were the orchards and kitchen gardens of the villa. The
Chalet, without cows or dairy, is separated from the roadway by a wooden
fence whose palings are hidden under a luxuriant hedge. On the other
side of the road the opposite house, subject to a legal privilege, has
a similar hedge and paling, so as to leave an unobstructed view of Havre
to the Chalet.

This little dwelling was the torment of the present proprietor of the
villa, Monsieur Vilquin; and here is the why and the wherefore. The
original creator of the villa, whose sumptuous details cry aloud,
"Behold our millions!" extended his park far into the country for the
purpose, as he averred, of getting his gardeners out of his pockets; and
so, when the Chalet was finished, none but a friend c