ple into these holes every morning before
breakfast, just as an appetizer, we heard a most blood-curdling
shriek, and there stood that wretched Jimmie watching us from an open
door, waving his Baedeker at us, with Mrs. Jimmie's lovely Madonna
smile seen over his shoulder.

No one who has not felt the awful pangs of homesickness abroad has any
idea of the joy with which one greets intimate friends in Europe. I
believe that travel in Europe has done more toward the riveting of
lukewarm American friendships than any other thing in the world.

The Jimmies have often appeared upon my pathway like angels of light,
and at Blois we simply loved them, for Blois is not only gloomy, but
it has a most ghastly history. The murder of the Duc de Guise and his
brother, by order of King Henry III., took place here. They show one
the rooms where the murder was committed, the door through which the
murderer entered, and the private _cabinet de travail_ where the king
waited for the news.

Here, also, Margaret of Valois married Henry of Navarre, and Charles,
Duc d'Alencon, married Margaret of Anjou. But one hardly ever thinks
of the weddings which occurred here for the horrors which overshadow
them. How fitting that Marie de' Medici should have been imprisoned
here, and my ancient enemy, Catharine, that queen-mother who perched
her children on thrones as carelessly and as easily as did Napoleon
and Queen Louise of Denmark--that Catharine should have died here,
"unregretted and unlamented," was too lovely!

Then we left the magnificent old castle and took the train for
Port-Boulet, where the Marquise met us with her little private
omnibus, holding eight, drawn by handsome American horses. They were
new horses and young, and the Marquise said that Charles found them
quite unmanageable. Jimmie watched him drive them around a moment or
two before they could be made to stand, then he broke out laughing.
The Marquise was so disgusted at the way they see-sawed that she said
she was going to sell them.

"Sell them!" cried Jimmie. "Why, all in the world that's the matter
with those poor brutes is that they don't speak French! Let _me_ drive
them!"

So the Marquise saved Charles's vanity by saying that monsieur wished
to try the new horses. Jimmie climbed upon the box, and gathered up
the reins, saying, "So, old boy, you don't like the dratted language
any better than I do. Steady now, boy! _Giddap_!" Whereat the pretty
creatures pricked up