Soon we reached the spot where we had watched the grape-pressing. The
men were giving up work and clearing away, leaving nothing behind them
but the stains of the fruit and the scent of the muscatel. They nodded
in friendly recognition, and we knew the laugh they gave meant to say
that the cup we had refused they had found very cheering. The narrow
street was growing dim, and in the arched room, half cellar, half wine
vault, they had lighted candles. The semi-obscurity was weird and
picturesque in the extreme, almost Rembrandt-like in effect. The men's
faces were thrown up against the dark background as the light fell upon
them; and as one of them sitting astride a barrel raised a cup to his
lips, he looked a true disciple of Bacchus.

Our guide passed on and turning up a narrow street halted before the
door of a quaint old house. The street was quiet and respectable; the
house clean and well cared for, in spite of its age.

"We have lived here for a quarter of a century and more--twenty-seven
years," said the old man, "and the house does not look a day older than
it looked then. Ah, senor," with a sigh, "we cannot say the same of
ourselves. Twenty-seven years in a lifetime make all the difference
between youth and age. But let us mount. My wife does not expect you,
but you will find her ready to receive the young king himself if he paid
her a visit."

We passed up a broad old staircase of solid oak, that would almost have
adorned a palace. In days gone by, this house, fallen to a low estate,
must have had a greater destiny. The walls were panelled. There was a
refined, imposing air about the place. We would have given worlds for
the power to transport the staircase over the seas.

The old man mounted to the topmost floor, and knocked at a large oak
door which well matched its surroundings. A voice responded, he lifted
the latch and we walked in.

"I bring you visitors, Nerissa," said the old man. "A gentleman from
France, who will talk to you in our beautiful language, and tell you of
scenes and places you have not looked upon for nearly seventy years. You
were only eighteen, I only twenty when we turned our backs for ever upon
la belle Normandie."

It was a sight worth seeing. The room was large and airy, quaint and old
as the rest of the house. Light came in through large casements with
latticed panes that bore the unmistakable seal of time. The room itself
was in perfect and spotless order. In a large alcove s