ing-place beside the bridge. There is a wish for solitude on
all. One hides himself in the arbour with a cigarette; another goes a
walk in the country with Cocardon; a third inspects the church. And it
is not till dinner is on the table, and the inn's best wine goes round
from glass to glass, that we begin to throw off the restraint and fuse
once more into a jolly fellowship.

Half the party are to return to-night with the wagonette; and some of
the others, loath to break up good company, will go with them a bit of
the way and drink a stirrup-cup at Marlotte. It is dark in the
wagonette, and not so merry as it might have been. The coachman loses
the road. So-and-so tries to light fireworks with the most indifferent
success. Some sing, but the rest are too weary to applaud; and it seems
as if the festival were fairly at an end--

"Nous avons fait la noce,
Rentrons a nos foyers!"

And such is the burthen, even after we have come to Marlotte and taken
our places in the court at Mother Antonine's. There is punch on the long
table out in the open air, where the guests dine in summer weather. The
candles flare in the night wind, and the faces round the punch are lit
up, with shifting emphasis, against a background of complete and solid
darkness. It is all picturesque enough; but the fact is, we are aweary.
We yawn; we are out of the vein; we have made the wedding, as the song
says, and now, for pleasure's sake, let's make an end on't. When here
comes striding into the court, booted to mid-thigh, spurred and
splashed, in a jacket of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable
Blank; and in a moment the fire kindles again, and the night is witness
of our laughter as he imitates Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen,
picture-dealers, all eccentric ways of speaking and thinking, with a
possession, a fury, a strain of mind and voice, that would rather
suggest a nervous crisis than a desire to please. We are as merry as
ever when the trap sets forth again, and say farewell noisily to all the
good folk going farther. Then, as we are far enough from thoughts of
sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint house, and sit an hour or so in a
great tapestried chamber, laid with furs, littered with sleeping hounds,
and lit up, in fantastic shadow and shine, by a wood-fire in a mediaeval
chimney. And then we plod back through the darkness to the inn beside
the river.

How quick bright things come to confusion! When we arise next morning,
the