xcept when it rises or when it sets, striping the road like a zebra
with its oblique rays, my view was obstructed by an outline of rising
ground; after that is passed, the long avenue is obstructed by a copse,
within which the roads meet at a cross-ways, in the centre of which
stands a stone obelisk, for all the world like an eternal exclamation
mark. From the crevices between the foundation stones of this erection,
which is topped by a spiked ball (what an idea!), hang flowering plants,
blue or yellow according to the season. Les Aigues must certainly have
been built by a woman, or for a woman; no man would have had such dainty
ideas; the architect no doubt had his cue.

Passing through the little wood placed there as sentinel, I came upon
a charming declivity, at the foot of which foamed and gurgled a little
brook, which I crossed on a culvert of mossy stones, superb in color,
the prettiest of all the mosaics which time manufactures. The avenue
continues by the brookside up a gentle rise. In the distance, the first
tableau is now seen,--a mill and its dam, a causeway and trees, linen
laid out to dry, the thatched cottage of the miller, his fishing-nets,
and the tank where the fish are kept,--not to speak of the miller's boy,
who was already watching me. No matter where you are in the country,
however solitary you may think yourself, you are certain to be the focus
of the two eyes of a country bumpkin; a laborer rests on his hoe,
a vine-dresser straightens his bent back, a little goat-girl, or
shepherdess, or milkmaid climbs a willow to stare at you.

Presently the avenue merges into an alley of acacias, which leads to an
iron railing made in the days when iron-workers fashioned those slender
filagrees which are not unlike the copies set us by a writing-master. On
either side of the railing is a ha-ha, the edges of which bristle with
angry spikes,--regular porcupines in metal. The railing is closed
at both ends by two porter's-lodges, like those of the palace at
Versailles, and the gateway is surmounted by colossal vases. The gold
of the arabesques is ruddy, for rust has added its tints, but this
entrance, called "the gate of the Avenue," which plainly shows the hand
of the Great Dauphin (to whom, indeed, Les Aigues owes it), seems to me
none the less beautiful for that. At the end of each ha-ha the walls
of the park, built of rough-hewn stone, begin. These stones, set in a
mortar made of reddish earth, display their v