to the castle. And to save time I insisted on
Brown lunching with us. That's happened before several times, so that it
doesn't seem at all strange now, though Aunt Mary fussed at first, and
even I felt rather funny. But the queer part is, it's so _much_ more
difficult to remember that Brown's not a gentleman than to make an
effort to be civil to him as if he were one. Rattray at the table was
beyond words, and so are a lot of Frenchmen who ought to know better;
but--you'll laugh at me--I don't see how a duke could eat any better
than Brown, or have nicer hands and nails; though how he does it with
the car to clean is more than I can tell.

We came towards the castle, after _dejeuner_, from the back through the
town, which was gay with booths and blue blouses and pretty peasant
girls, because the market was being held. We went right through the
crowd, up, up a sloping path, where suddenly we were in a restful
silence, after the chattering and chaffering below. And I felt as if we
had got into a novel of Scott's; for if we'd been his characters he
would have brought us up short at a secretive door in a tower, just like
the one where we had to knock. One couldn't guess what would be on the
other side of that tower; and it was like walking on through the next
chapter of the same novel (walking slowly and with dignity, so that we
might "live up to" the author of our being) to wander up a steep road
leading to a plateau and reach the still, formal garden with the great
castle rising out of it.

On this plateau a lovely thing simply took my eyes captive and wouldn't
let them go. It was the most perfect gem of a little chapel out of
dreamland. Brown said it was "a jewel of the pure Gothic, one of the
most precious of the florid kind in France." Comic to have one's
_chauffeur_ talking to one like that, isn't it? But I'm used to it now,
and feel quite injured if Brown happens not to know something I ask him
about.

I never realised what an important lady Anne of Brittany was, till I was
introduced to her sweet little ermine at Blois. Brown hinted then that I
would keep on realising it more and more as we drove through the Loire
country, and so I do. This chapel was hers--built for her, and I envy
her having it. Couldn't you, Dad dear, just make a bid, and have it
taken over for our garden at Lennox? But no! that would be sacrilege.
It's almost sacrilege even to joke about it. Yet, oh, that carving of
St. Hubert and his holy s