hy childhood. For miles after Caen there
were long stretches of green pasture-lands--hundreds of cows and
horses, some of them the big Norman dray-horses resting a little
before beginning again their hard work, and quantities of long-legged
colts trotting close up alongside of their mothers, none of them
apparently minding the train. We finally arrived at the quiet little
station of Valognes. Countess de Florian was waiting for me, with
their big omnibus, and we had a short drive all through the town to
their hotel, which is quite at one end, a real country road running in
front of their house. It is an old hotel standing back from the road
and shut in with high iron gates. There is a large court-yard with a
grass-plot in the middle, enormous flower-beds on each side, and a
fine sweep of carriage road to the perron. A great double stone
staircase runs straight up to the top of the house, and glass doors
opposite the entrance lead into the garden. I had an impression of
great space and height and floods of light. I went straight into the
garden, where they gave me tea, which was most refreshing after the
long hot day. They have no house party. The dowager countess,
Florian's mother, is here, and there was a cousin, a naval officer,
who went off to Cherbourg directly after dinner. The ground-floor is
charming; on one side of the hall there are three or four salons, and
a billiard-room running directly across the house from the garden to
the court-yard; on the other, a good dining-room and two or three
guests' rooms; the family all live upstairs.

[13] Abbaye aux Hommes, Abbaye aux Dames.

It is a delightful house. My room is on the ground-floor, opening from
the corridor, which is large and bright, paved with flagstones. My
windows look out on the entrance court, so that I see all that goes on.
As soon as my maid has opened the windows and brought in my petit
dejeuner, I hear a tap at the door and the countess's maid appears to
ask, with madame's compliments, if I have all I want, if I have had a
good night, and to bring me the morning paper. The first person to move
is the dowager countess, who goes to early mass every morning. She is a
type of the old-fashioned French Faubourg St. Germain lady; a straight,
slender figure, always dressed in black, devoted to her children and to
all her own family, with the courteous, high-bred manner one always
finds in French women of the old school. She doesn't take much interest
i