ne gulp, on our
second and last afternoon. If he could, he would have sent us spinning
like teetotums from one concentric ring of historic chateaux to
another, until goodness knows how far from Aosta, Finois, Souris, and
Fanny-anny, we should have ended. He would also have despatched us on
a two or three days' excursion to Courmayeur; and I fear that his
respect for us went down like mercury in a chilled thermometer, when
he understood that we had not come to the country to do any of the
famous climbs. He named so many, dear to the hearts of my Alpine Club
acquaintances, that it would have taken us well into the new year to
accomplish half; and he accepted with mild, disapproving resignation
our fiat that there were other parts of the world worth seeing.

As we had to cover a radius of many miles, in our rounds of visits at
the few sample chateaux we had selected from the waiter's list, we
decided to spare our legs and those of the animals. It was hardly
playing the game we had set out to play--we two strangely-met
friends--to amble conventionally from show-house to show-house, in a
carriage, with guide-books in our hands, like everyday tourists;
nevertheless, we did this unworthy thing. Perhaps, therefore, I
deserved the punishment which fell upon me.

Little did I dream, when I flippantly spoke of our expedition as
"driving out to pay calls," how nearly my thoughtless words were to be
realised. We started immediately after an early _dejeuner_, sitting
side by side in a little low-swung carriage, a superior phaeton, or
poor relation of a victoria. The day was hot, but a delicious breeze
came to us from the snow mountains, and there was a peculiar buoyancy
in the air.

Our first castle was Sarre, the Chateau Royal, an enormous brown
building with a disproportionately high tower. This hunting-lodge of
the King would have been grimly ugly, were it not for its rocky
throne, high above the river bed, and its background of glistening
white mountains. The huge pile looked like a sleeping dragon with its
hundreds of window-eyes close-lidded, and I could not imagine it an
amusing place for a house party. I was glad that the Boy was not
animated with that wild mania for squeezing the last drop from the
orange of sightseeing which makes some travelling companions so
depressing. The castle was closed to visitors, yet many people would
have insisted on climbing the steep hill for the barren satisfaction
of saying that they had