es, I am a true
citizeness of the world."

CHAPTER VIII

They had been driving a considerable time, and at last the coachman,
turning round on his seat, asked where they wished to go next.

"I ask you to come and 'ave tea with me," said Madame Wachner turning to
Sylvia. "We are not very far from the Chalet des Muguets, and I 'ave some
excellent tea there. We will 'ave a rest, and tell the man to come back
for us in one hour. What do you think of that, Madame?"

"It is very kind of you," said Sylvia gratefully; and, indeed, she did
think it very kind. It would be pleasant to rest a while in the Wachner's
villa and have tea there.

Sylvia was in the mood to enjoy every new experience, however trifling,
and she had never been in a French private house.

"Au Chalet des Muguets," called out Madame Wachner to the driver.

He nodded and turned his horse round.

Soon they were making their way along newly-made roads, cut through what
had evidently been, not so very long before, a great stretch of forest
land.

"The good people of Lacville are in a hurry to make money," observed
Madame Wachner in French. "I am told that land here has nearly trebled in
value the last few years, though houses are still cheap."

"It seems a pity they should destroy such beautiful woods," said Sylvia
regretfully, remembering what the Comte de Virieu had said only that
morning.

The other shrugged her shoulders, "I do not care for scenery--no, not at
all!" she exclaimed complacently.

The carriage drew up with a jerk before a small white gate set in low,
rough, wood palings. Behind the palings lay a large, straggling, and
untidy garden, relieved from absolute ugliness by some high forest trees
which had been allowed to remain when the house in the centre of the plot
of ground was built.

Madame Wachner stepped heavily out of the carriage, and Sylvia followed
her, feeling amused and interested. She wondered very much what the
inside of the funny little villa she saw before her would be like. In any
case, the outside of the Chalet des Muguets was almost ludicrously unlike
the English houses to which she was accustomed.

Very strange, quaint, and fantastic looked the one-storey building,
standing far higher than any bungalow Sylvia had ever seen, in a lawn
of high, rank grass.

The walls of the Chalet des Muguets were painted bright pink, picked out
with sham brown beams, which in their turn were broken at intervals by
large