ing the horses' hoofs or the noise of the
wheels, and when we turned our faces homeward toward the sunset there
was really a glory of colour in wood and sky. It was always curiously
lonely--we rarely met anything or anyone, occasionally a group of
wood-cutters or boys exercising dogs and horses from the
hunting-stables of Villers-Cotterets. At long intervals we would come
to a keeper's lodge, standing quite alone in the middle of the forest,
generally near a carrefour where several roads met. There was always a
small clearing--garden and kennels, and a perfectly comfortable house,
but it must be a lonely life for the women when their husbands are off
all day on their rounds. I asked one of them once, a pretty, smiling
young woman who always came out when the carriage passed, with three
or four children hanging to her skirts, if she was never afraid, being
alone with small children and no possibility of help, if any drunkards
or evilly disposed men came along. She said no--that tramps and
vagabonds never came into the heart of the forest, and always kept
clear of the keeper's house, as they never knew where he and his gun
might be. She said she had had one awful night with a sick child. She
was alone in the house with two other small children, almost babies,
while her husband had to walk several miles to get a doctor. The long
wait was terrible. I got to know all the keepers' wives on our side of
the forest quite well, and it was always a great interest to them when
we passed on horseback, so few women rode in that part of France in
those days.

Sometimes, when we were in the heart of the forest, a stag with
wide-spreading antlers would bound across the road; sometimes a pretty
roebuck would come to the edge of the wood and gallop quickly back as
we got near.

We had a nice couple at the lodge, an old cavalry soldier who had been
for years coachman at the chateau and who had married a Scotchwoman,
nurse of one of the children. It was curious to see the tall, gaunt
figure of the Scotchwoman, always dressed in a short linsey skirt,
loose jacket, and white cap, in the midst of the chattering, excitable
women of the village. She looked so unlike them. Our peasant women
wear, too, a short; thick skirt, loose jacket, and worsted or knit
stockings, but they all wear sabots and on their heads a turban made
of bright-coloured cotton; the older women, of course--the girls wear
nothing on their heads. They become bent and wrinkle