d, her eyes intent on
the long, straight road before her, and a look almost of rapture upon
her face.

We had raced silently through the forest for nearly an hour, when,
mingling with the balsam of the pines there came a pungent odour of
ozone floating from open blue spaces beyond the sombre girdle of the
pines. Miss Randolph threw at me a questioning glance. "It must be the
sea," I answered, and in a few moments more, after passing through the
ancient town of La Teste, we came out upon the edge of a vast lagoon,
semicircular, the distant shores almost lost in an indistinct blue haze.
"The Bassin d'Arcachon," I said. Still, no town was visible, only the
great expanse of landlocked sea, its shore dotted with the brown wooden
cabins of the oyster fishers. It seemed like coming to the end of the
world.

Slowing down a little, we followed a raised causeway that skirted the
edge of the Bassin, and presently entered upon a long, straight
street--one of the oddest streets you have ever seen, one whole side of
it (that next the sea) being composed of fantastic bungalows and
pleasure-houses of all imaginable styles, each set in its own garden,
and the whole town drowned in an ocean of pines. At the outskirts I took
the helm again, for Miss Randolph scarcely trusts her skill in traffic.
Not that there was enough to be alarming in Arcachon, for the place
seemed under a spell of silence. We drove through the long main street,
past an imposing white chateau and a good many quite charming houses,
until we came to a hotel which the Goddess fancied, and turned into a
garden. I'd never been to Arcachon before, and supposed from the
guide-books that this was the place for "my ladies" (as the couriers
say) to stop. But the landlady came out, and welcoming us with one
breath, recommended us with the next to their winter house in the
forest. This place, looking over the sea, was for summer; the other was
now more agreeably sheltered.

The "house in the forest" sounded well in the ears of the Goddess, so we
drove off to find it, according to the directions of Madame Feras. The
Napier spun us up a steep, winding road into a charming garden
surrounding an Alhambra sort of place, which Aunt Mary thought "real
gay," being bitterly disappointed to find it was not our hotel, but
Arcachon's casino. The garden proved to be, however, practically the
beginning of the _Ville d'Hiver_, a quaint and delightful collection of
villas which look as if th