room.

No one seemed to have thought of this before; and that is what they
finally did, and at last we got to sleep. In the morning no landlord
could still be found, and we had no coffee, but presently he arrived
accompanied by two _gendarmes_ and goodness knows what other rabble
armed with sticks, and they wanted to proceed upstairs. We heard every
sort of "_Sacres!_" going on between them and Hippolyte, and eventually
the landlord almost crawled up apologising, and opened the door with
his key.

[Sidenote: _A Cautious Landlord_]

It appears that hearing the noise of the door being tried to be opened
and Madame de Vermandoise's screams, he had thought it wiser to decamp
for the night, as two years ago there had been a murder there, and he
had had "beaucoup d'embetement," he said, on account of it, and was
determined not to be mixed up in one again, "En ces affaires la, il est
bien assez tot d'arriver le lendemain," he said.

Everybody was still laughing too much over the situation to be angry
with him; and the coffee, which we got at last, was so good it made up
for it; but you should have heard the _plaisanteries_ they made over
the night's adventure!

Caudebec is an odd place; it used to be inhabited by hundreds of
Protestant beaver hat-makers, who fled from there after the Edict of
Nantes' affair, and so there are streets of deserted houses still, and
so old, one has a stream down the middle. I would not go into the
church: the usual smell met me at the door; so the Vicomte and Jean and
I went for a walk, and now we are just going to start on the
_Sauterelle_ again, and this must be posted. I have managed to write it
on my knee, sitting on a stone bench outside the inn door.--Good-bye,
dear Mamma, with love from your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth.

HOTEL FRASCATI, HAVRE

Hotel Frascati, Havre,

_Sunday, 21st August_.

[Sidenote: _Havre to Trouville_]

Dearest Mamma,--I am sorry our nice voyage is nearly finished, for we
go over to Trouville this evening, and from there by train back to
Vinant. The river is not nearly so pretty after you leave Caudebec, but
Tancarville is fine, and looks very imposing sitting up so high. The
Vicomte has been talking to me all the time, but Jean stays by. We were
dusty and sun-burnt by the time we got to Havre, and Heloise and the
Marquise and I started at once for the big baths. They do not quite
join the hotel, so we covered a good deal of absence, in the wa