looks!" he sighed.

"Ay," replied the Doctor, "small enough now. Yet it was once a walled
city; thriving, full of furred burgesses and men in armour, humming with
affairs;--with tall spires, for aught that I know, and portly towers
along the battlements. A thousand chimneys ceased smoking at the
curfew-bell. There were gibbets at the gate as thick as scarecrows. In
time of war, the assault swarmed against it with ladders, the arrows fell
like leaves, the defenders sallied hotly over the drawbridge, each side
uttered its cry as they plied their weapons. Do you know that the walls
extended as far as the Commanderie? Tradition so reports. Alas! what a
long way off is all this confusion--nothing left of it but my quiet words
spoken in your ear--and the town itself shrunk to the hamlet underneath
us! By-and-by came the English wars--you shall hear more of the English,
a stupid people, who sometimes blundered into good--and Gretz was taken,
sacked, and burned. It is the history of many towns; but Gretz never rose
again; it was never rebuilt; its ruins were a quarry to serve the growth
of rivals; and the stones of Gretz are now erect along the streets of
Nemours. It gratifies me that our old house was the first to rise after
the calamity; when the town had come to an end, it inaugurated the
hamlet."

"I, too, am glad of that," said Jean-Marie.

"It should be the temple of the humbler virtues," responded the Doctor
with a savoury gusto. "Perhaps one of the reasons why I love my little
hamlet as I do, is that we have a similar history, she and I. Have I told
you that I was once rich?"

"I do not think so," answered Jean-Marie. "I do not think I should have
forgotten. I am sorry you should have lost your fortune."

"Sorry?" cried the Doctor. "Why, I find I have scarce begun your
education after all. Listen to me! Would you rather live in the old Gretz
or in the new, free from the alarms of war, with the green country at the
door, without noise, passports, the exactions of the soldiery, or the
jangle of the curfew-bell to send us off to bed by sundown?"

"I suppose I should prefer the new," replied the boy.

"Precisely," returned the Doctor; "so do I. And in the same way, I prefer
my present moderate fortune to my former wealth. Golden mediocrity!
cried the adorable ancients; and I subscribe to their enthusiasm. Have I
not good wine, good food, good air, the fields and the forest for my
walk, a house, an admirable wife, a