with young men in flannels. In her day a young man in bras de chemise would have been ashamed to appear before ladies in such attire. We didn't stay very long that day, as we were far from home, and the afternoon was shortening fast. The retraite was sometimes long when we had miles of hard road before us, until we arrived at the farm or village where the carriage was waiting. When we could walk our horses it was bearable, but sometimes when they broke into a jog-trot, which nothing apparently could make them change, it was very fatiguing after a long day. Sometimes, when we had people staying with us, we followed the hunt in the carriage. We put one of the keepers of the Villers-Cotterets forest on the box, and it was wonderful how much we could see. The meet was always amusing, but when once the hunt had moved off, and the last stragglers disappeared in the forest, it didn't seem as if there was any possibility of catching them; and sometimes we would drive in a perfectly opposite direction, but the old keeper knew all about the stags and their haunts when they would break out and cross the road, and when they would double and go back into the woods. We were waiting one day in the heart of the forest, at one of the carrefours, miles away apparently from everything, and an absolute stillness around us. Suddenly there came a rush and noise of galloping horses, baying hounds and horns, and a flash of red and green coats dashed by, disappearing in an instant in the thick woods before we had time to realize what it was. It was over in a moment--seemed an hallucination. We saw and heard nothing more, and the same intense stillness surrounded us. We had the same sight, the stag taken in the water, some years later, when we were alone at the château. Mme. A. was dead, and her husband had gone to Paris to live. We were sitting in the gallery one day after breakfast, finishing our coffee, and making plans for the day, when suddenly we saw red spots and moving figures in the distance, on the hills opposite, across the canal. Before we had time to get glasses and see what was happening, the children came rushing in to say the hunt was in the woods opposite, the horns sounding the hallali, and the stag probably in the canal. With the glasses we made out the riders quite distinctly, and soon heard faint echoes of the horn. We all made a rush for hats and coats, and started off to the canal. We had to go down a steep, slippery path which was always muddy in all weathers, and across a rather rickety narrow plank, also very slippery. As we got nearer, we heard the horns very well, and the dogs yelping. By the time we got to the bridge, which was open to let a barge go through, everything had disappeared--horses, dogs, followers, and not a sound of horn or hoof. One solitary horseman only, who had evidently lost the hunt and didn't know which way to go. We lingered a little, much disgusted, but still hoping we