t occurred to them to take a day's trip into the country, as
unattached people now and then can do. They might have gone out in a
car--but they chose the railroad, with a walk at the end--on the
principle that no one can know and love a country who does not press
its earth beneath his feet,--the Doctor would probably have said, "lay
his head upon its bosom." By an accident--they missed a train--they
found themselves at sunset of a beautiful day in a small village, and
with no possible way of getting back to Paris that night unless they
chose to walk fifteen miles to the nearest railway junction. After a
long day's tramp that seemed too much of a good thing.

So they looked about to find a shelter for the night. The village--it
was only a hamlet--had no hotel, no cafe, even. Finally an old peasant
said that old Mother Servin--a widow--living a mile up the road--had a
big house, lived alone, and could take them in,--if she wanted to,--he
could not say that she would.

It seemed to them worth trying, so they started off in high spirits to
tramp another mile, deciding that, if worse became worst--well--the
night was warm--they could sleep by the roadside under the stars.

It was near the hour when it should have been dark--but in France at
that season one can almost read out of doors until nine--when they
found the place. With some delay the gate in the stone wall was
opened, and they were face to face with the old widow.

It was a long argument, but the Doctor had a winning way, and at the
end they were taken in,--more, they were fed in the big clean
kitchen, and then each was sheltered in a huge room, with cement
floor, scrupulously clean, with the quaint old furniture and the queer
appointments of a French farmhouse.

The next morning, when the Doctor threw open the heavy wooden shutters
to his window, he gave a whistle of delight to find himself looking
out into what seemed to be a French Paradise--and better than that he
had never asked.

It was a wilderness. Way off in the distance he got glimpses of broken
walls with all kinds of green things creeping and climbing, and
hanging on for life. Inside the walls there was a riot of
flowers--hollyhocks and giroflees, dahlias and phlox, poppies and huge
daisies, and roses everywhere, even climbing old tree trunks, and
sprawling all over the garden front of the rambling house. The edges
of the paths had green borders that told of Corbeil d'Argent in
Midwinter, and viol