mamma."

"Now don't you think," I pursued, "that it would be better to spend it
for little cakes?"

This instantly corrupted them, and they cried with one voice, "Oh yes!"

Out of respect to me the oldest girl made a small boy pull up his
stocking, which had got down round his ankle, and then they took the
money and all ran off. Later they returned to show me that they had got
it changed into copper and shared equally among them. They must have
spent an evening of great excitement talking us over.

The October sun set early, chill, and disconsolate after a rain. A weary
peasant with a heavy load on his back, which he looked as if he had
brought from the dawn of time, approached the castle gate, and bowed to
us in passing. I was not his feudal lord, but his sad, work-worn aspect
gave me as keen a pang as if I had been.

IV

The Pays de Vaud is also the land of castles, and the visitor to Vevay
should not fail to see Blonay Castle, the seat of the ancient family
which, with intervals of dispossession, has possessed it ever since the
Crusades. It is only a little way off, on the first rise of the hills,
from which it looks over the vineyards on inexpressible glories of lake
and distant mountains, and it is most nobly approached through steeps of
vine and grove. Apparently it is kept up in as much of the sentiment of
the past as possible, and one may hire its baronial splendor fully
furnished; for the keeper told it had been occupied by an English family
for the last three winters. The finish, like that of the castle of
Aigle, is rude, but the whole place is wonderfully picturesque and
impressive. The arched gateway is alone worth a good rent; the long
corridors from which the chambers open are suitable to ghosts fond of
walking exercise; the superb dining-room is round, and the floor is so
old that it would shake under the foot of the lightest spectre. The
_repertoire_ of family traditions is almost inexhaustible, and doubtless
one might have the use of them for a little additional money. One of the
latest is of the seventeenth century, when the daughter of the house was
"the beautiful Nicolaide de Blonay, before whom many adorers had bent
the knee in vain. Among them, a certain Tavel de Villars, vanquished the
proud beauty by his constancy. But the marriage was delayed. Officer in
the service of France, Tavel was detained by his military duties. In the
mean time Jean-Francois de Blonay, of another branch of the fa