, he departed unrefreshed.

On certain little difficulties encountered by the _Arethusa_ at
Chatillon-sur-Loing, I have not space to dwell; another Chatillon, of
grislier memory, looms too near at hand. But the next day, in a certain
hamlet called La Jussiere, he stopped to drink a glass of syrup in a
very poor, bare drinking-shop. The hostess, a comely woman, suckling a
child, examined the traveller with kindly and pitying eyes. "You are not
of this Department?" she asked. The _Arethusa_ told her he was English.
"Ah!" she said, surprised. "We have no English. We have many Italians,
however, and they do very well; they do not complain of the people of
hereabouts. An Englishman may do very well also; it will be something
new." Here was a dark saying, over which the _Arethusa_ pondered as he
drank his grenadine; but when he rose and asked what was to pay, the
light came upon him in a flash. "_O, pour vous_," replied the landlady,
"a halfpenny!" _Pour vous_? By heaven, she took him for a beggar! He
paid his halfpenny, feeling that it were ungracious to correct her. But
when he was forth again upon the road, he became vexed in spirit. The
conscience is no gentleman, he is a rabbinical fellow; and his
conscience told him he had stolen the syrup.

That night the travellers slept in Gien; the next day they passed the
river and set forth (severally, as their custom was) on a short stage
through the green plain upon the Berry side, to Chatillon-sur-Loire. It
was the first day of the shooting; and the air rang with the report of
fire-arms and the admiring cries of sportsmen. Overhead the birds were
in consternation, wheeling in clouds, settling and re-arising. And yet
with all this bustle on either hand, the road itself lay solitary. The
_Arethusa_ smoked a pipe beside a milestone, and I remember he laid down
very exactly all he was to do at Chatillon: how he was to enjoy a cold
plunge, to change his shirt, and to await the _Cigarette's_ arrival, in
sublime inaction, by the margin of the Loire. Fired by these ideas, he
pushed the more rapidly forward, and came, early in the afternoon, and
in a breathing heat, to the entering-in of that ill-fated town. Childe
Roland to the dark tower came.

A polite gendarme threw his shadow on the path.

"_Monsieur est voyageur_?" he asked.

And the _Arethusa_, strong in his innocence, forgetful of his vile
attire, replied--I had almost said with gaiety: "So it would appear."

"His papers a