only occupants of a great salon in which
a hundred people might have dined with case. A brass lamp, suspended by
chains from the ceiling, illumined their corner of the' centre table,
and at the far end of the room a big stove bloomed red-hot all round
like a magnified cherry. These preparations were scarcely needed, for
the air was balmy, the windows were open, and the sky was yet full of
the evening light of early summer. The voice of a stream not far away
ran on with a ceaseless, light-hearted babble, and through the open
windows the one street of the village was visible until it swerved away
to the left There are a thousand villages like Montcour-tois; but it was
the first of its genus Paul had known, and he found a quiet charm in it
The Hotel of the Three Friends stood in the Place Publique, dominated
by a brand-new town-hall; but all the rest of the place was quaint and
old-fashioned. All the houses were distempered in various colours, and
all their architects had worked after the decrees of the destinies, so
that the street-line itself was full of gable-ends, and the edifices
faced in as many directions as was possible. A sturdy, thick-set village
girl, neat as a new pin, with cheeks hard and red, and shining like
hard red apples, brought in the soup--a _soupe a la bonne femme_,
and admirable of its kind--brought in a dish of fresh-caught trout
excellently fried; followed this with veal cutlets; with a tart, and a
local cheese which, though it had no fame beyond its own borders, was a
surprise for an epicure. With the fish came a dusty, cobwebbed bottle
in a cradle, and at the sight of it the _doyen_ lifted his eyebrows,
and faintly smacked his lips. Paul, in ordering dinner, had asked the
square-built Flemish waitress:

'You have Burgundy?

'But yes, sir,' the girl had answered, 'and of the best.'

'Bring me a bottle of your best,' Paul had said, and had thought no more
of the matter.

But when the venerable cleric so twinkled at the sight of the dusty
flagon in the threadbare bid wicker cradle, he was tempted to ask if
they had anything very special before them.

'My dear sir,' returned the _doyen_, 'it is a wine for an Emperor, and
if I may be permitted to tell you so, its appearance is attributable to
my presence here.'

It was a noble vintage, and the _doyen_ grew eloquent over it.

'It is here in the Ardennes,' he said, 'that you find the best Burgundy
of the world. We have no vineyards of our own,