to visit a soldier son at the barracks, brought him to the
hotel for a meal, and for a space the radiance of blue and scarlet and
the glint of steel cast a military glamour over the staid company.

An amusing little circumstance to us onlookers was that although the
supply of cooked food seemed equal to any demand, the arrival of even a
trio of unexpected guests to dinner invariably caused a dearth of bread.
For on their advent Iorson would dash out bareheaded into the night, to
reappear in an incredibly short time carrying a loaf nearly as tall as
himself.

One morning a stalwart young Briton brought to breakfast a pretty
English cousin, on leave of absence from her boarding-school. His
knowledge of French was limited. When anything was wanted he shouted
"Garcon!" in a lordly voice, but it was the pretty cousin who gave the
order. _Dejeuner_ over, they departed in the direction of the Chateau.
And at sunset as we chanced to stroll along the Boulevard de la Reine,
we saw the pretty cousin, all the gaiety fled from her face, bidding her
escort farewell at the gate of a Pension pour Demoiselles. The ball was
over. Poor little Cinderella was perforce returning to the dust and
ashes of learning.

[Illustration: Juvenile Progress]

CHAPTER III

THE TOWN

The English-speaking traveller finds Versailles vastly more foreign than
the Antipodes. He may voyage for many weeks, and at each distant
stopping-place find his own tongue spoken around him, and his
conventions governing society. But let him leave London one night, cross
the Channel at its narrowest--and most turbulent--and sunrise will find
him an alien in a land whose denizens differ from him in language,
temperament, dress, food, manners, and customs.

Of a former visit to Versailles we had retained little more than the
usual tourist's recollection of a hurried run through a palace of
fatiguing magnificence, a confusing peep at the Trianons, a glance
around the gorgeous state equipages, an unsatisfactory meal at one of
the open-air _cafes_, and a scamper back to Paris. But our winter
residence in the quaint old town revealed to us the existence of a life
that is all its own--a life widely variant, in its calm repose, from the
bustle and gaiety of the capital, but one that is replete with charm,
and abounding in picturesque-interest.

[Illustration: Automoblesse Oblige]

Versailles is not ancient; it is old, completely old. Since the fall of
the Second