Each side of the long valley is a long low ridge, which offers it a
high, bosky horizon, and through the middle of it there flows a charming
stream, wandering, winding, and doubling, smothered here and there in
rocks, and spreading into lily-coated reaches, beneath the clear shadow
of tall, straight, light-leaved trees. On each side of the stream the
meadows stretch away flat, clean, and magnificent, lozenged across with
rows of sober foliage under which a cow-maiden sits on the grass hooting
now and then, nasally, to the large-uddered browsers in front of her.
There are no hedges, nor palings, nor walls; it is all a single estate.
Here and there in the meadows stands a cluster of red-roofed
hovels--each a diminutive village. At other points, at about half an
hour's walk apart, are three charming old houses. The chateaux are
extremely different, but, both picturesquely and conveniently, each has
its points. They are very intimate with each other, so that these points
may be amicably discussed. The points in one case, however, are
remarkably strong. The chateau stands directly in the little river I
have mentioned, on an island just great enough to hold it, and the
garden flowers grow upon the further bank. This, of course, is a most
delightful affair. But I found something very agreeable in the aspect of
one of the others, when I made it the goal of certain of those walks
before breakfast which of cool mornings in the late summer do not fall
into the category of ascetic pleasures. (In France, indeed, if one did
not do a great many things before breakfast, the work of life would be
but meagerly performed.)

The dwelling in question stands on the top of the long ridge which
encloses the comfortable valley to the south, being by its position
quite in the midst of its appurtenant acres. It is not particularly
"kept up," but its quiet rustiness and untrimmedness only help it to be
picturesque. A grassy plateau approaches it from the edge of the hill,
bordered on one side by a short avenue of horse-chestnuts, and on the
other by a dusky wood. Beyond the chestnuts are the steep-roofed,
yellow-walled farm buildings, and under cover of the wood a stretch of
beaten turf, where, on Sundays and holidays, the farm-servants play at
bowls. Directly before the chateau is a little square garden enclosed by
a low stone parapet, interrupted by a high gateway of mossy pillars and
iron arabesques, the whole of it overclambered by flowering v