work in France--to find themselves owners of a
splendid chateau and estate, receiving the great people of the country.
I dare say in ten or twelve years they will be like any one else, and if
there were sons or daughters the young men would get into parliament or
the diplomatic career, the daughters would marry some impoverished scion
of a noble family, and cheeses and butter would be forgotten.

We had one delightful day at Cherbourg. The Prefet Maritime invited us
to breakfast with him at his hotel. We went by rail to Cherbourg, about
half an hour, and found the admiral's carriage waiting for us. The
prefecture is a nice, old-fashioned house, in the centre of the town,
with a big garden. We took off our coats in a large, handsome room
upstairs. The walls were covered with red damask and there were pictures
of Queen Victoria and Louis Napoleon. It seems the Queen slept in that
room one night when she came over to France to make her visit to Louis
Philippe at the Chateau d'Eu. We found quite a party assembled--all the
men in uniform and the women generally in white. We breakfasted in a
large dining-room with glass doors opening into the garden, which was
charming, a blaze of bright summer flowers. We adjourned there for
coffee after breakfast. The trees were big, made a good shade, and the
little groups, seated about in the various bosquets, looked pretty and
gay. When coffee and liqueurs were finished we drove down to the quay,
where the admiral's launch was waiting, and had a delightful afternoon
steaming about the harbour. It is enormous, long jetties and breakwaters
stretching far out, almost closing it in. There was every description of
craft--big Atlantic liners, yachts, fishing boats, ironclads, torpedoes,
and once we very nearly ran over a curious dark object floating on the
surface of the water, which they told us was a submarine. It did not
look comfortable as a means of transportation, but the young officers
told us it was delightful.

[Illustration: Market women. Valognes.]

We got back to Valognes to a late dinner, having invited a large party
to come over for tennis and dinner the next day. The Florians are a
godsend to Cherbourg. They are most hospitable, and with automobiles the
distance is nothing, and one is quite independent of trains. Yesterday
four of our party went off to Cherbourg to make a cruise in a
torpedo-boat. The ladies were warned that they must put on clothes which
would not mind sea-w