evening at one
another's houses.

At a distance not insurmountable there was an English chapel; but the
character of the clergyman was not of a kind to recommend itself to
persons who had some regard for the decencies of life; and so we
contented ourselves with saying our prayers at home. The old cure of
the place, with whom we became slightly acquainted, seemed to be a
worthy sort of man, liberal in his ideas, and possessed of a
considerable taste for music. He made rather an agreeable and obliging
neighbour.

Talking of cures, I may mention that one came from a distance of
several miles to pay his respects to us, and offer welcome to France.
He said, he desired to make our acquaintance because we came from
England, where he had found 'rest for twenty years, and received much
kindness.' He was a rich man, had a pretty little church, a
picturesque house in a sort of park, which he had stocked with pigs
instead of sheep; and every day that was not one of fasting or
abstinence, he had pork for dinner. He took a great fancy to us, and
wanted us to give up our cottage, and come and live with him, as he
had plenty of room and desired society; but we declined. Had we done
so, I doubt not that he would have left us his money, for he had no
relations, and bequeathed the whole, for want of an heir, to his
grocer. He grew cooler after our refusal, but still sometimes came to
see us on a pot-bellied cart-horse--a most stolid-looking beast, but
one which often took most laughably strange fits of friskiness. Once I
saw the good cure's watch jump out of his pocket, fly over his head,
and disappear amid a heap of nettles, where little Victor found it,
and hoped for a rich reward; but he only received an old book of
devotion, and a lecture on the duty of reading it.

I must relate a little adventure which might have been written fifty
years ago, when it would have obtained more credence than it will in
the present day, from those travellers at least who have kept to the
highways, and those residents who have lived only in the towns of
France. One morning Batilde asked permission to visit a friend who had
come to spend a day with her sister at C----. 'They breed poultry; and
as madame likes a goose as soon as the fete of St Michel comes, it
would be worth her while to desire Mere Talbot to feed one up against
that time. They live a good way off,' pursued she, 'in a poor hamlet
called Les Briares. It would be almost worth madame's wh