glish, for it
was I who gave it to you. I don't suppose she ever lived, really, at the
Chateau de Langeais or anywhere else; but the thought of her made
Langeais even more interesting to me than it would have been if she'd
been erased from the picture.

It's a great, grey, frowning, turreted and crenelated fortress-house,
and I felt so much obliged to it for having kept its practicable
drawbridge. We drove almost up to the door, through a clean, very old
little town, and just opposite the entrance was a quaint house where
Brown said Rabelais had lived. I don't believe Aunt Mary knew anything
about Rabelais. However, she eagerly Kodaked the house, and later, when
I gravely mentioned to her that Rabelais was the kind you wouldn't allow
_me_ to read, but of course _she_ might, if she liked, she gave a squeak
of dismay, and threatened to waste all her films rather than let a
photographer see that one when they went to be developed. I do hope _I_
shan't be an old maid!

The Parisian millionaire who owns the Chateau, and lives in it part of
the year, must be a wonderfully generous, public-spirited man. Only
think, he has spent thousands and thousands in restoring the castle, in
keeping up the lovely garden, and in having all the rooms exquisitely
furnished and decorated exactly in the period of wicked Louis the
Eleventh and Charles the Eighth. But instead of keeping these beautiful
things for himself and his family and friends, he lets everybody have
the benefit, not even making an exception of his own private rooms. Here
Anne of Brittany was very much to the fore again, for she was married to
Charles at Langeais, and we went into the room of the wedding. I should
have liked to take the splendid, dignified, old major-domo, who showed
us about, home with me; but I'm sure he'd pine away and die if torn from
his beloved Chateau.

We bought quaint painted iron brooches, with Anne of Brittany's crest on
them, in the town; and then we drove away through pretty, undulating
country, which must be lovely in summer, to Azay-le-Rideau. Francis the
First built it; and he certainly had as good taste in castles as in
ladies, which is saying a great deal.

This is a fairy house. It doesn't look as if it had ever been _built_ in
the ordinary sense, but as if somebody had dropped a huge, glimmering
pearl down on the green meadow, and it had rolled near enough to the
water to see its own reflection. Then the same somebody had carved
exqui