ng mouths hideously
debased. A few were really _bons diables_, who seemed determined to be
gay, and to joke under the most trying circumstances; but the greater
number had morose faces, puckered by the long agony of bearing up the
church. Such variety of expression in ugliness was a triumph of art in
the far-off age, when the chisel of an unremembered man with a teeming
imagination made these heads take life from the inanimate stone.

The road from Autoire to St. Cere soon led me into the valley of the
Bave, a beautiful trout-stream, galloping towards the Dordogne through
flowery meadows, on this last day of May, and under leaning trees,
whose imaged leaves danced upon the ripples in the green shade. As I
had no need to hurry, I loitered to pick ragged-robins upon the banks,
flowers dear to me from old associations. Very common in England, they
are comparatively rare in France.

New pleasures await the wayfarer every hour, almost every minute, in
the day, and however long he may continue to wander over this
wonderful world of inexhaustible variety, if he will only stop to look
at everything, and so learn to feel the charm of little things.

I met a beggar, and fell into conversation with him. He asked me for
nothing, and was surprised when I gave him two sous. He was a ragged
old man, with a canvas bag, half filled with crusts, slung upon his
side. I had already met many such beggars in this part of France. They
travel about from village to village, filling their bags with pieces
of bread that are given them, and selling afterwards what they cannot
eat as food for pigs. As they rarely receive charity in the form of
money, they do not expect it. This kind of mendicant is distinctly
rural, and belongs to old times.

The bold front of an early Renaissance castle, with round towers at
the angles, capped with pointed roofs, drew me from the highroad. It
was the Chateau de Montal, in connection with which I had already
heard the story of one Rose de Montal, a young lady of some three
centuries ago, who had given her heart to a nobleman of the country,
Roger de Castelnau. By-and-by the charms of another lady caused him to
neglect the fair Rose de Montal. She remained almost constantly at a
window of one of the towers, scanning the country, and longing to
catch sight of the faithless Roger. One day he came down the valley of
the Bave, and she sang from the height of her tower a plaintive
love-song, hoping that he would stop