ing for the travellers, but which led them without other difficulty
to the bottom of a woody dell, where they were able to ford the stream.
As soon as they had, with difficulty, ascended the opposite hill, the
silvery fog that had surrounded them began to dissipate, and they
distinguished a road close by, which led a winding course through the
forest.

"Ah! now I see my way!" said the driver, "we have only to go straight on,
and in twenty minutes we shall be at Vivey. This devil of a fog cuts into
one's skin like a bunch of needles. With your permission, Monsieur de
Buxieres, and if it will not annoy you, I will light my pipe to warm
myself."

Now that he knew he was conducting the proprietor of the chateau, he
repented having treated him so cavalierly the day before; he became
obsequious, and endeavored to gain the good-will of his fare by showing
himself as loquacious as he had before been cross and sulky. But Julien
de Buxieres, too much occupied in observing the details of the country,
or in ruminating over the impressions he had received during the morning,
made but little response to his advances, and soon allowed the
conversation to drop.

The sun's rays had by this time penetrated the misty atmosphere, and the
white frost had changed to diamond drops, which hung tremblingly on the
leafless branches. A gleam of sunshine showed the red tints of the
beech-trees, and the bright golden hue of the poplars, and the forest
burst upon Julien in all the splendor of its autumnal trappings. The
pleasant remembrance of Reine Vincart's hospitality doubtless predisposed
him to enjoy the charm of this sunshiny morning, for he became, perhaps
for the first time in his life, suddenly alive to the beauty of this
woodland scenery. By degrees, toward the left, the brushwood became less
dense, and several gray buildings appeared scattered over the glistening
prairie. Soon after appeared a park, surrounded by low, crumbling walls,
then a group of smoky roofs, and finally, surmounting a massive clump of
ash-trees, two round towers with tops shaped like extinguishers. The
coachman pointed them out to the young man with the end of his whip.

"There is Vivey," said he, "and here is your property, Monsieur de
Buxieres."

Julien started, and, notwithstanding his alienation from worldly things,
he could not repress a feeling of satisfaction when he reflected that, by
legal right, he was about to become master of the woods, the fields, a