The second day was quite different. There was no shooting. We were left to our own devices until twelve o'clock breakfast. W. and I went for a short stroll in the park. We met M. A., who took us over the farm, all so well ordered and prosperous. After breakfast we had about an hour of salon before starting for the regular tournée de propriétaire through park and gardens. The three ladies--Mme. A., her daughter, and daughter-in-law--had beautiful work. Mme. A. was making portières for her daughter's room, a most elaborate pattern, reeds and high plants, a very large piece of work; the other two had also very complicated work--one a table-cover, velvet, heavily embroidered, the other a church ornament (almost all the Frenchwomen of a certain monde turn their wedding dresses, usually of white satin, into a priest's vêtement). The Catholic priests have all sorts of vestments which they wear on different occasions; purple in Lent, red on any martyr's fête, white for all the fêtes of the Virgin. Some of the churches are very rich with chasubles and altar-cloths trimmed with fine old lace, which have been given to them. It looks funny sometimes to see a very ordinary country curé, a farmer's son, with a heavy peasant face, wearing one of those delicate white-satin chasubles. Before starting to join the shooters at breakfast Mme. A. took me all over the house. It is really a beautiful establishment, very large, and most comfortable. Quantities of pictures and engravings, and beautiful Empire furniture. There is quite a large chapel at the end of the corridor on the ground-floor, where they have mass every Sunday. The young couple have a charming installation, really a small house, in one of the wings--bedrooms, dressing-rooms, boudoir, cabinet de travail, and a separate entrance--so that M. A. can receive any one who comes to see him on business without having them pass through the château. Mme. A. has her rooms on the ground-floor at the other end of the house. Her sitting-room with glass door opens into a winter garden filled with plants, which gives on the park; her bedroom is on the other side, looking on the court-yard; a large library next it, light and space everywhere, plenty of servants, everything admirably arranged. The evening mail goes out at 7.30, and every evening at seven exactly the letter-carrier came down the corridor knocking at all the doors and asking for letters. He had stamps, too, at least _French_ stamps. I could never get a foreign stamp (twenty-five centimes)--had to put one of fifteen and two of five when I had a foreign letter. I don't really think there were any in the country. I don't believe they had a foreign correspondent of any description. It was a thoroughly French establishment of the best kind.