Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. City And Chateau Op Saumur?The CavAlry School?A New Acquaintance, Via A Parasol. A few days, my dear Sylvia, after our visit to the great Dolmen, the Chevalier drove your Tante into town to see the Chateau. We rode in his pretty village cart behind the trimmest of little ponies, Babette by name, and her steady continuance in well trotting was our admiration; her legs were so short and her pace so rapid and uniform that after each drive, if she had understood English (but being a French pony this was not to be expected), we might have commended her in these words:
Madame Babette, you are a little trump. Several of our ladies with their gallants had walked on before us. Chateau de Saumur stands upon a rocky Acropolis visible from the whole surrounding country, and to reach it from the city it is necessary to climb a narrow way, too steep for carriages, at the foot of which little Babette halted and looked grave. A hint to the wise being sufficient, we dismounted. My Sylvia, I wish you could have walked up that steep, winding incline with us. It is a strip out of the middle ages set into thepresent day, after the crazy-quilt style, only more crazy still. There were no sidewalks; the street was paved with water-worn cobble-stones of different sizes, and fringed here and there with spears of grass about their margins. The old stone houses, less lofty and high-toned than those of Canon street, Edinburgh, seemed to crowd upon the passer-by like a multitude of curious folk, as if strangers were a great novelty and must needs be inspected. The doors, generally, stood open. These were sometimes square and sometimes arched. They gave passing vistas of peasant dishabille and peasant occupation. The portals were secured by clumsy locks, with rude heavy keys, or by …
