male commissionnaire, a sort of domestic
broker of all-work. This woman supplies travelling families with linen,
and, at need, with plate; and she could greatly facilitate matters, by
knowing where and to whom to apply for all that was required; an
improvement in the division of labour that may cause you to smile, but
which is extremely useful, and, on the whole, like all division of
labour, economical.

The commissionnaire informed us that there were an unusual number of
furnished houses to be let, in the neighbourhood, the recent political
movements having driven away their ordinary occupants, the English and
Russians. Some of the proprietors, however, might object to the
shortness of the time that we could propose for (a month), as it was
customary to let the residences by the year. There was nothing like
trying, however, and, ordering dinner to be ready against our return, we
took a carriage and drove along the lake-shore as far as Clarens, so
renowned in the pages of Rousseau. I ought, however, to premise that I
would not budge a foot, until the woman assured me, over and over, that
the little antiquated edifice, under the mountain, which had actually
been a sort of chateau, was not at all habitable for a genteel family,
but had degenerated to a mere coarse farm-house, which, in this country,
like "love in a cottage," does better in idea than in the reality. We
gave up our "castle under the hill" with reluctance, and proceeded to
Clarens, where a spacious, unshaded building, without a spark of poetry
about it, was first shown us. This was refused, incontinently. We then
tried one or two more, until the shades of night overtook us. At one
place the proprietor was chasing a cow through an orchard, and, probably
a little heated with his exercise, he rudely repelled the application of
the commissionnaire, by telling her, when he understood the house was
wanted for only a month, that he did not keep a _maison garnie_. I could
not affirm to the contrary, and we returned to the inn discomfited, for
the night.

Early next morning the search was renewed with zeal. We climbed the
mountain-side, in the rear of the town, among vines, orchards, hamlets,
terraces castles, and villas, to see one of the latter, which was
refused on account of its remoteness from the lake. We then went to see
a spot that was the very _beau ideal_ of an abode for people like
ourselves, who were out in quest of the picturesque. It is called the
Cha