d be different," said she. And I wondered
if she had accidentally betrayed anything.

At Liposthey we struck the direct road, with good surface, from Bordeaux
to Bayonne. Thus on through Labouheyre to Castets, still walled in with
dark, balsamic forest, where we lunched. Just beyond, however, we found
that we were bidding the pines farewell, and we were regretting them
despite the beauty of the road--increasing every moment--when suddenly
we had a great surprise. At what precise point it came I don't quite
know, for I was snatched up out of the dull "flatland" of facts. Miss
Randolph was driving, and I was glancing interestedly about, as an
intelligent young man of the working-class may, when away to the left I
saw up in the skies a long chain of blue, serrated mountains looking far
too high to belong to this world. I started on my seat; then Miss
Randolph saw what I saw. "Oh--h!" she breathed, with a responsive sigh
of appreciation. Not an adjective; not a word. I blessed her for that.
Unfortunately, Aunt Mary seized this moment to awake, and she did not
spare us fireworks. She never does. She is one of those women who insist
upon your knowing that they have a soul for beauty. But she went to
sleep again when she had used up all her rockets, and left the Goddess
and me alone with the Pyrenees. Much nearer Bayonne we had another
surprise--a notice, in English, by the roadside: "To the Guards'
Cemetery." An odd sign to come across in France, _n'est ce pas, mon
brave_? And just as I was calling up the past, Miss Randolph exclaimed;
"I wonder if _your_ Napier is any relation to _that_ Napier?" which
shows that she has the Peninsular Campaign at her finger-ends; or else
Aunt Mary has been cramming her out of a guide-book.

It was not late in the afternoon when we crossed the bridge over the
Adour (_she_ says the proverb, "Don't cross your bridges till you get to
them," can't apply to France, as you're always getting to them), but
already the sky was burnished with sunset; and if there's anything finer
than a grand and ancient fortified gateway turned to copper by the sun,
I don't know it. I advised Miss Randolph to come back one day from
Biarritz, if we stayed long enough, to see the exquisite old glass
window for which the Bayonne cathedral is famous; but it was too late to
pause for such details as windows then, so we flew on along the
switchback road over the remaining five miles to Biarritz. Here, in this
agreeable tow