the Mater Dolorosa, knelt a woman in deep black, weeping and praying all alone. In another flowery nook dedicated to the Infant Jesus, a peasant girl was telling her beads over the baby asleep in her lap; her sunburnt face refined and beautiful by the tenderness of mother-love. In a third chapel a pale, wasted old man sat propped in a chair, while his rosy old wife prayed heartily to St. Gratien, the patron saint of the church, for the recovery of her John Anderson. And most striking of all was a dark, handsome young man, well-dressed and elegant, who was waiting at the door of a confessional with some great trouble in his face, as he muttered and crossed himself, while his haggard eyes were fixed on the benignant figure of St. Francis, as if asking himself if it were possible for him also to put away the pleasant sins and follies of the world, and lead a life like that which embalms the memory of that good man.
'If we don't go away to-morrow we never shall, for this church will bewitch us, and make it impossible to leave,' said Amanda, when at length they tore themselves away.
'I give up trying to sketch cathedrals. It can't be done, and seems impious to try,' said Matilda, quite exhausted by something deeper than pleasure.
'I think the "Reminiscences of a Rook" would make a capital story. They are long-lived birds, and could tell tales of the past that would entirely eclipse our modern rubbish,' said Lavinia, taking a last look at the solemn towers, and the shadowy birds that had haunted them for ages.
The ladies agreed to be off early in the morning, that they might reach Amboise in time for the eleven o'clock breakfast. Amanda was to pay the bill, and to make certain enquiries at the office; Mat to fly out and do a trifle of shopping; while Lavinia packed up the bundles and mounted guard over them. They separated, but in half-an-hour all met again, not in their room according to agreement, but before the cathedral, which all had decided not to revisit on any account.
Matilda was there first, and as each of the others came stealing round the corner, she greeted them with a laugh, in which all joined after the first surprise was over.
'I told you it would bewitch us,' said Amanda; and then all took a farewell look, which lasted so long that they had to rush back to the hotel in most unseemly haste.
'Now to fresh châteaux and churches new,' sang Lavinia, as they rolled away on the fourth stage of their summer journey. A very short stage it was, and soon they were in an entirely new scene, for Amboise was a little, old-time village on the banks of the Loire, looking as if it had been asleep for a hundred years. The Lion d'Or was a quaint place, so like the inns described in French novels, that one kept expecting to see some of Dumas' heroes come dashing up, all boots, plumes, and pistols, with a love-letter for some court beauty in the castle on the hill beyond.
Queer galleries and stairs led up outside the house to the rooms above. The salle-à-manger was across a court, and every dish came from a kitchen round the corner. The garçon, a beaming, ubiquitous creature, trotted perpetually, diving down steps, darting into dark corners, or skipping up ladders, producing needfuls from most unexpected places. The bread came from the stable, soup from the cellar, coffee out of a meal-chest, and napkins from the housetop, apparently, for Adolphe went up among the weather-cocks to get them.
'No one knows us, no one can speak a word of English, and if we happen to die here it will never be known. How romantic and nice it is!' exclaimed Mat, in good spirits, for the people treated the ladies as if they were duchesses in disguise, and the young women liked it.
'I'm not so sure that the romance is all it looks. We should be in a sweet quandary if anything happened to our sheet-anchor here. Just remember, in any danger, save Amanda first, then she will save us. But if she is lost, all is lost,' replied Lavinia, darkly, for she always took tragical views of life when her bones ached.
Up the hill they went after breakfast; and balm was found for the old lady's woes in the sight of many Angora cats, of great size and beauty. White as snow, with tails like plumes, and mild, yellow eyes, were these charmers. At every window sat one; on every door-step sprawled a bunch of down; and frequently the eye of the tabby-loving spinster was gladdened by the touching spectacle of a blonde mamma in the bosom of her young family.
'If I could only carry it, I'd have one of those dears, no matter what it cost!' cried Lavinia, more captivated by a live cat than by all the dead Huguenots that Catherine de Medicis hung over the castle walls on a certain memorable occasion.
'Well, you can't, so come on and improve your mind with some good, useful history,' said Amanda, leading them forward. 'You must remember that Charles VII. was born here in 1470—that Anne of Brittany married him for her first husband, and that he bumped his head against a low door in the garden here above, as he was running through to play bowls with his Anne, and it killed him.'
'Which? the bump or the bowls?' asked Mat, who liked to have things clearly stated.
'Don't be frivolous, child. Here Margaret of Anjou and her son were reconciled to Warwick. Abd-el Kader and his family were kept prisoners here, and in the garden is a tomb with a crescent on it; likewise a "pleached walk," and a winding drive inside the great tower, up which lords and ladies used to ride straight into the hall,' continued the sage Amanda, who yearned to enlighten the darkness of her careless friends.
A brisk old woman did the honours of the castle, showing them mouldy chapels, sepulchral halls, rickety stairs, grubby cells, and pitch-dark passages, till even the romantic Matilda was glad to see the light of day, and repose in the pleasant gardens while removing the cobwebs from her countenance and the dust from her raiment.
A lovely view gladdened their eyes as they stood on the balcony whence the amiable Catherine surveyed the walls hung thick, and the river choked up with the dead. Below, the broad Loire rolled slowly by between its green banks. Little boys, in the costume of Cupid, were riding great horses in to bathe after the day's work. The grey roofs of the town nestled to the hillside, and far away stretched the summer landscape, full of vague suggestions of new scenes and pleasures to the pilgrims.
'We start for Chenonceaux at seven in the morning; so, ladies, I beg that you will be ready punctually,' was the command issued by Amanda, as they went to their rooms, after a festive dinner of what Lavinia called 'earth-worms and cacti,' not being fond of stewed brains, baked eels, or thistles and pigweed chopped up in oil.
Such a droll night as the wanderers spent! No locks on the doors and no bells. Stairs leading straight up the gallery from the courtyard, carts going and coming, soft footsteps stealing up and down, whispers that sounded suspicious (though they were only orders to kill chickens and pick salad for the morrow), and a ghostly whistle that disturbed Lavinia so much, she at last draped herself in the green coverlet, and went boldly forth upon the balcony to see what it meant.
She intended to demand silence in French that would strike terror to the soul of the bravest native. But when she saw that poor, dear, hard-worked garçon blacking boots by the light of the moon, her heart melted with pity; and, resolving to give him an extra fee, she silently retired to her stone-floored bower, and fell asleep in a stuffy little bed, whose orange curtains filled her dreams with volcanic eruptions and conflagrations of the most lurid description.
At seven, an open carriage with a stout pair of horses and a sleepy driver rolled out of the court-yard of the Lion d'Or. Within it sat three ladies, who gazed at one another with cheerful countenances, and surveyed the world with an air of bland content, beautiful to behold.
'I am fairly faint with happiness,' sighed Matilda, as they drove through fields scarlet with poppies, starred with daisies, or yellow with buttercups, while birds piped gaily, and trees wore their early green.
'You did not eat any breakfast. That accounts for it. Have a crust, do,' said Amanda, who seldom stirred without a good, sweet crust or two; for they were easy to carry, wholesome to chew, and always ready at a moment's notice.
'Let us save our "entusymusy" till we get to the château, and enjoy this lovely drive in a peaceful manner,' said Lavinia, still a little sleepy after her adventures in the glimpses of the moon.
So, for an hour or two, they rolled along the smooth road, luxuriating in the summer sights