s their home; but
where they had passed these four weeks they really could not have told
you. The time had gone hop skip-and-jump; a couple of days had entirely
slipped out of their reckoning, and, on the other hand, they remembered
a little summer-house at Fontainebleau, where they had rested one
evening, as clearly as if they had passed half their lives there.

Paris was, strictly speaking, the goal of their wedding journey, and
there they established themselves in a comfortable little _hotel garni_.
But the city was sultry and they could not rest; so they rambled about
among the small towns in the neighborhood, and found themselves, one
Sunday at noon, in Saint-Germain.

"Monsieur and Madame have doubtless come to take part in the fete?" said
the plump little landlady of the Hotel Henri Quatre, as she ushered her
guests up the steps.

The fete? They knew of no fete in the world except their own wedded
happiness; but they did not say so to the landlady.

They soon learned that they had been lucky enough to drop into the very
midst of the great and celebrated fair which is held every year, on the
first Sunday of September, in the Forest of Saint-Germain.

The young couple were highly delighted with their good hap. It seemed as
though Fortune followed at their heels, or rather ran ahead of them, to
arrange surprises. After a delicious tete-a-tete dinner behind one of
the clipped yew trees in the quaint garden, they took a carriage and
drove off to the forest.

In the hotel garden, beside the little fountain in the middle of the
lawn, sat a ragged condor which the landlord had bought to amuse his
guests. It was attached to its perch by a good strong rope. But when the
sun shone upon it with real warmth, it fell a-thinking of the snow-peaks
of Peru, of mighty wing-strokes over the deep valleys--and then it
forgot the rope.

Two vigorous strokes with its pinions would bring the rope up taut, and
it would fall back upon the sward. There it would lie by the hour, then
shake itself and clamber up to its little perch again.

When it turned its head to watch the happy pair, Madame Tousseau burst
into a fit of laughter at its melancholy mien.

The afternoon sun glimmered through the dense foliage of the
interminable straight-ruled avenue that skirts the terrace. The young
wife's veil fluttered aloft as they sped through the air, and wound
itself right round Monsieur's head. It took a long time to put it in
order again