ny cottage in a
wild-looking garden at the foot of the huge fortress walls. We rang a
gate-bell, when another notice told us we'd got to the right place, and
a little, smiling woman came out to welcome us. "Oh, yes!" said she
volubly. She would show us the excavations, and we would find them as
interesting as anything we could see in Loches. Already it was easy to
see that in _her_, at least, we had found something interesting. She had
the nicest, brightest old face, and she poured out upon us a kind of
benign dew of conversation. She introduced herself as Madame Cesar;
always talking and explaining, she lighted a candle, led us to the mouth
of an egg-shaped subterranean path, and bowed us down. She went, too,
down the steep steps, telling how this passage and many ramifications of
it had been discovered only recently, most of the excavations having
been the work of her husband. It was supposed that an underground
gallery led a long way from Loches to some distant spot, so that people
could come and go to the castle unseen, and so that the fortress could
secretly receive provisions if it were besieged. All sorts of things had
been found in the passages--rosaries, and old, old books, and coins, and
queer playing-cards; and some of the best of the relics she had in her
own cottage. We stopped to see them afterwards, and she reeled forth
yards of history in the most fascinating and vivacious manner,
accompanied by dramatic gestures, almost worthy of Sara Bernhardt. I
suppose she must have been down in the excavations oftener than she
could remember, but you would have thought it was perfectly new to her,
and she was seeing it for the first time. She gave us a rose each to
remember her by, and oh!--wasn't it comic, or tragic? which you
will--she quite misunderstood things, and suggested that _I_ should put
Brown's rose in his leathery buttonhole. He and I both pretended not to
hear, but I felt embarrassed for a minute. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have
missed Madame Cesar and her excavations for a good deal.

There, _dejeuner_ is ready, and you'll be glad, maybe, dear, faraway
Dad, because it will spare you further descriptions. After _dejeuner_ we
shall proceed to be lightning-conducted again, and I shall duly collect
a few more adventures to recount. Good-bye, dear. How I wish you were
with me instead of Aunt Mary!

Your everlasting