r, and only come down after six, when the
air gets cooler. We saw parties seated about in all directions and had
glimpses of the white dresses, which are a uniform this year, flitting
through the trees. It was very pretty, but not like the walls of
Marienbad, with the splendid black pine forest all around and every now
and then a glimpse of a green Alm (high field on the top of a mountain),
with the peasant girl in her high Tyrolean hat and clean white
chemisette standing on the edge, with her cows all behind her and the
bells tinkling in the distance.

[Illustration: Chateau de Lassay.]

It was so warm this evening that we sat out until ten o'clock. We had a
visit from Comte de G., son-in-law of our friend Mrs. L.S. He lives at
Deauville, and had announced himself for Monday morning for breakfast at
twelve. He _did_ come for breakfast, but on Tuesday morning, having been
en route since Monday morning at seven o'clock. He was in an automobile
and everything happened to him that can happen to an automobile except
an absolute smash. He punctured his tires, had a big hole in his
reservoir, his steering gear bent, his bougies always doing something
they oughtn't to. He dined and slept at Falaise; rather a sketchy
repast, but as he told us he could always get along with poached eggs,
could eat six in an ordinary way and twelve in an emergency, we were
reassured; for one can always get eggs and milk in Normandy. He arrived
in a perfectly good humour and made himself very pleasant. He is an old
soldier--a cavalry officer--and doesn't mind roughing it.

The journey from Deauville to Bagnoles is usually accomplished in three
or four hours. Falaise, the birthplace of William the Conqueror, is an
interesting old town, but looks as if it had been asleep ever since that
great event. The old castle is very fine, stands high, close to the edge
of the cliff, so that the rock seems to form part of the great walls.
There is one fine round tower, and always the grass walk around the
ramparts.

The views are beautiful. Looking down from one of the narrow, pointed
windows, still fairly preserved, we had the classic Norman landscape at
our feet--beautiful green fields, enormous trees making spots of black
shade in the bright grass, the river, sparkling in the sunshine, winding
through the meadows, a group of washerwomen, busy and chattering,
beating their clothes on the flat stones where the river narrows a
little under the castle walls,