d old Burgundy.
How splendid are these Norman autumns! What exhilarating old days
during this season of dropping apples, blue skies, and falling leaves!
Days when the fat little French partridges nestle in companies in the
fields, shorn to stubble after the harvest, and sleek hares at sunrise
lift their long ears cautiously above the dew-bejeweled cobwebs along
the ditches to make sure that the green feeding-patch beyond is safe
from the man and the gun.

Fat, garrulous Monsieur Toupin of the village becomes under the spell of
Madame Vinet's best cognac so uproarious when he has killed one of these
sleek, strong-limbed hares, that madame is obliged to draw the
turkey-red curtain over the window of her small cafe that Monsieur
Toupin may not be seen by his neighbours.

"Suzette," I called, "my candle! I must get a good night's sleep, for
to-morrow I shoot with the Baron."

"_Tiens!_" exclaimed the little maid. "At the grand chateau?" And her
frank eyes opened wide. "Ah, _mais_--but monsieur will not have to work
hard for a partridge there."

"And so you know the chateau, my little one?"

"Ah, _mais oui_, monsieur! Is it not at La Sapiniere near Les Roses? My
grandfather was gardener there when I was little. I passed the chateau
once with my mother and heard the guns back of the great wall. Monsieur
will be content--ah, _mais oui_!"

"My coffee at five-thirty promptly, _ma petite_!"

"_Bien_, monsieur." And Suzette passed me my lighted candle, the flame
of which rose brilliantly from its wick.

"That means good luck, monsieur," said she, pointing to the
candle-flame, as my foot touched the winding stairs.

"Nonsense!" I laughed, for I am always amused at her peasant belief in
superstitions. Once, I remember, I was obliged to send for the
doctor--Suzette had broken a mirror.

"Ah, _mais si_," declared Suzette, with conviction, as she unlatched her
kitchen door. "When the wick burns like that--ah, _ca!_" And with a
cheery _bonsoir_ she closed the door behind her.

I had just swallowed my coffee when the siren of the Baron's automobile
emitted a high, devilish wail, and subsided into a low moan outside my
wall. The next instant the gate of the court flew open, and I rushed
out, to greet, to my surprise, Tanrade in his shooting-togs, and--could
it be true? Monsieur le Cure.

"You, too?" I exclaimed in delight.

"Yes," he smiled and added, with a wink: "I could not refuse so gamy an
invitation."

"And I woul