d no longer quite make out the old
handwriting for the new, which would not be obliterated, and these
were confused lines it was hard to read between--with all my skill!

Altogether we were uncommonly glad to get back to the Villa
Montmorency--from the distorted shadows of a nightmare to happy
reality.

There, all was fresh and delightful; as boys we had often seen the
outside walls of that fine property which had come to the
speculative builder at last, but never a glimpse within; so that
there was no desecration for us in the modern laying out of that
beautiful double garden of ours, whatever there might have been for
such ghosts of Montmorencys as chose to revisit the glimpses of the
moon.

We haunted Auteuil, Passy, Point du Jour, Suresnes, Courbevoie,
Neuilly, Meudon--all the familiar places. Especially we often
haunted the neighborhood of the rond point de l'Avenue du Bois de
Boulogne.

One afternoon, as he and I and Leah and Ida were driving round what
once was our old school, we stopped in the lane not far from the
porte-cochere, and Barty stood up on the box and tried to look over
the wall.

Presently, from the grand stone loge which had replaced Jaurion's
den, a nice old concierge came out and asked if we desired anything.
We told him how once we had been at school on that very spot, and
were trying to make out the old trees that had served as bases in
"la balle au camp," and that if we really desired anything just then
it was that we might become school-boys once more!

"Ah, ma foi! je comprends ca, messieurs--moi aussi, j'ai ete
ecolier, et j'aimais bien la balle au camp," said the good old man,
who had been a soldier.

He informed us the family were away, but that if we liked to come
inside and see the garden he was sure his master would have no
objection. We jumped at this kind offer and spent quite an hour
there, and if I were Barty I could so describe the emotions of that
hour that the reader would feel quite as tearfully grateful to me as
to Barty Josselin for Chapters III. and IV. in _Le Fil de la
Vierge_, which are really founded, _mutatis mutandis_, on this
self-same little adventure of ours.

Nothing remained of our old school--not even the outer walls;
nothing but the big trees and the absolute ground they grew out of.
Beautiful lawns, flower-beds, conservatories, summer-houses, ferns,
and evergreen shrubs made the place seem even larger than it had
once been--the very reverse of what