ged, then went up
at a walking pace a gravelly road leading towards a little pine-wood.
The trees became larger, and, from time to time, the driver would say,
"This is the Freres Siamois, the Pharamond, the Bouquet de Roi," not
forgetting a single one of these notable sites, sometimes even drawing
up to enable them to admire the scene.

They entered the forest of Franchard. The carriage glided over the grass
like a sledge; pigeons which they could not see began cooing. Suddenly,
the waiter of a cafe made his appearance, and they alighted before the
railing of a garden in which a number of round tables were placed. Then,
passing on the left by the walls of a ruined abbey, they made their way
over big boulders of stone, and soon reached the lower part of the
gorge.

It is covered on one side with sandstones and juniper-trees tangled
together, while on the other side the ground, almost quite bare, slopes
towards the hollow of the valley, where a foot-track makes a pale line
through the brown heather; and far above could be traced a flat
cone-shaped summit with a telegraph-tower behind it.

Half-an-hour later they stepped out of the vehicle once more, in order
to climb the heights of Aspremont.

The roads form zigzags between the thick-set pine-trees under rocks with
angular faces. All this corner of the forest has a sort of choked-up
look--a rather wild and solitary aspect. One thinks of hermits in
connection with it--companions of huge stags with fiery crosses between
their horns, who were wont to welcome with paternal smiles the good
kings of France when they knelt before their grottoes. The warm air was
filled with a resinous odour, and roots of trees crossed one another
like veins close to the soil. Rosanette slipped over them, grew
dejected, and felt inclined to shed tears.

But, at the very top, she became joyous once more on finding, under a
roof made of branches, a sort of tavern where carved wood was sold. She
drank a bottle of lemonade, and bought a holly-stick; and, without one
glance towards the landscape which disclosed itself from the plateau,
she entered the Brigands' Cave, with a waiter carrying a torch in front
of her. Their carriage was awaiting them in the Bas Breau.

A painter in a blue blouse was working at the foot of an oak-tree with
his box of colours on his knees. He raised his head and watched them as
they passed.

In the middle of the hill of Chailly, the sudden breaking of a cloud
cause