e trees. It is a
little too peaceful and monotonous for my taste. I like something bolder
and wilder. A high granite cliff standing out in the sea, with the great
Atlantic rollers breaking perpetually against it, appeals to me much
more than green fields and cows standing placidly in little clear
brooks, and clean, comfortable farmhouses, with pretty gray Norman
steeples rising out of the woods, but my companions were certainly not
of my opinion and were enchanted with the Norman landscape. We had a
long ride back in the soft evening light. I am afraid to say how many
kilometres we went in the three hours we were away.

It has been warm these last days. There is a bit of road absolutely
without shade of any kind we have to pass every time we go to the
etablissement, which is very trying. I love the early morning walk,
everything is so fresh and the air singularly light and pure. It seems
wicked to go into that atmosphere of hot air and suffering humanity,
which greets one on the threshold of the bathhouse. To-day I have been
driving with the princess. She does not like the automobile when she is
making a cure--says it shakes her too much.

We had a pretty drive, past the chateau of Couterne, which is most
picturesque. A beautiful beech avenue leads up to the house, which is
built of brick, with round towers and a large pond or lake which comes
right up to the walls. It is of the sixteenth century, and has been
inhabited ever since by the same family. One of the ancestors was
"chevalier et poete" of Queen Marguerite of Navarre. I had a nice talk
with the princess about everything and everybody. I asked her if she had
ever read "The Lightning Conductor." As her own auto is a Napier, I
thought it would interest her. I told her all the potins (little gossip)
of the hotel--that people said her youngest daughter was going to marry
the King of Spain, and the general verdict was that the princess would
make "a beautiful queen." Every one is horror-struck at the murder of
the Russian Minister of the Interior, and I suppose it is only a
beginning.

This afternoon I have been walking in the lovely woods at the back of
the etablissement. It is rather a steep climb to get to the point de vue
and troublesome walking, as the paths are dry and slippery and the roots
of the pine-trees that spread out over the paths catch one's heels
sometimes. Some people spend all their day high up in the pines--take up
books, seats, work, and goute