e south side of the house, save a single
door to the north, contrived behind the staircase to give access to the
vineyard. Against the western wall stands a supplementary timber-framed
structure, all the woodwork exposed to the weather being fledged with
slates, so that the walls are checkered with bluish lines. This shed
(for it is little more) is the kitchen of the establishment. You can
pass from it into the house without going outside; but, nevertheless,
it boasts an entrance door of its own, and a short flight of steps that
brings you to a deep well, and a very rustical-looking pump, half hidden
by water-plants and savin bushes and tall grasses. The kitchen is a
modern addition, proving beyond doubt that La Grenadiere was originally
nothing but a simple _vendangeoir_--a vintage-house belonging to
townsfolk in Tours, from which Saint-Cyr is separated by the vast
river-bed of the Loire. The owners only came over for the day for
a picnic, or at the vintage-time, sending provisions across in the
morning, and scarcely ever spent the night there except during the
grape harvest; but the English settled down on Touraine like a cloud of
locusts, and La Grenadiere must, of course, be completed if it was to
find tenants. Luckily, however, this recent appendage is hidden from
sight by the first two trees of a lime-tree avenue planted in a gully
below the vineyards.

There are only two acres of vineyard at most, the ground rising at the
back of the house so steeply that it is no very easy matter to scramble
up among the vines. The slope, covered with green trailing shoots, ends
within about five feet of the house wall in a ditch-like passage always
damp and cold and full of strong growing green things, fed by the
drainage of the highly cultivated ground above, for rainy weather washes
down the manure into the garden on the terrace.

A vinedresser's cottage also leans against the western gable, and is
in some sort a continuation of the kitchen. Stone walls or espaliers
surround the property, and all sorts of fruit-trees are planted among
the vines; in short, not an inch of this precious soil is wasted. If
by chance man overlooks some dry cranny in the rocks, Nature puts in a
fig-tree, or sows wildflowers or strawberries in sheltered nooks among
the stones.

Nowhere else in all the world will you find a human dwelling so humble
and yet so imposing, so rich in fruit, and fragrant scents, and
wide views of country. Here is a min