areheaded man in
shirt-sleeves was busy gathering a basket of the first roses. He seemed
particular about their arrangement, and while he thus pleased himself,
he talked aloud in a leisurely way, and with a strong voice, now to a
black cat on the wall above him, and now as if to the flowers. De
Courval was much amused by this fresh contribution to the strange
experiences of the last two days. The language of the speaker was also
odd.

As De Courval caught bits of the soliloquy under his window, he thought
of his mother's wonder at this new and surprising country.

What would she write Rochefoucauld d'Entin? She was apt to be on paper,
as never in speech, emotional and tender, finding confession to white
paper easy and some expression of the humorous aspects of life possible,
when, as in writing, there needed no gay comment of laughter. If she
were only here, thought the son. Will she tell the duke how she is
"thou" to these good, plain folk, and of the prim welcomes, and of this
German, who must be the Friend Schmidt they spoke of,--no doubt a
Quaker, and whom he must presently remind of his audience? But for a
little who could resist so comic an opportunity? "Gute Himmel, but you
are beautiful!" said the voice below him. "Oh, not you," he cried to
the cat, "wanton of midnight! I would know if, Madame Red Rose, you are
jealous of the white-bosomed rose maids. If all women were alike fair as
you, there would be wild times, for who would know to choose? Off with
you, Jezebel, daughter of darkness! 'Sh! I love not cats. Go!" and he
cast a pebble at the sleepy grimalkin, which fled in fear. This singular
talk went on, and De Courval was about to make some warning noise when
the gardener, adding a rose to his basket, straightened himself, saying:
"Ach, Himmel! My back! How in the garden Adam must have ached!"

Leaving his basket for a time, he was lost among the trees, to reappear
in a few minutes far below, out on the water in a boat, where he
undressed and went overboard.

"A good example," thought De Courval. Taking a towel, he slipped out
noiselessly through the house where no one was yet astir, and finding a
little bathhouse open below the garden, was soon stripped, and, wading
out, began to swim. By this time the gardener was returning, swimming
well and with the ease of an expert when the two came near one another a
couple of hundred yards from shore.

As they drew together, De Courval called out in alarm: "Look