de Vandemont-Lorraine, wife of Henry III, who fared this way to the home of her widowhood at Chenonceaux, and by much the same route passed Marie de Medicis when she fled from Blois and found refuge and aid at Loches. [Illustration: SMITHY NEAR GATE OF CHEVERNY] As Cheverny and Chaumont are not far apart, we were aroused from our reflections by a sudden stop at a little smithy near the gates of the park. A most charming little smithy is this, with a niched saint on the outside, vines clambering all over the wall, and a picturesque outside staircase with a little balcony above. The blacksmith, himself, as he stood framed in by the doorway, made a picture that we thought well worth taking. Unfortunately the saint in the niche could not come in, as it was some distance from the door, but just at the right moment Lydia, quite unconsciously, stepped before the lens, and near the stone stairway which she had been examining. "Far better than a saint!" said Archie under his breath, and then aloud, "Keep still, Miss Mott, the blacksmith will stay, I am sure, as he looks as if he had been built into that door." I think we shall be able to send you a photograph of our little smithy, and perhaps one of the church across the road, which is quaint and interesting, with its timbered verandas (one cannot, by any stretch of courtesy, call them cloisters) and something like a lych-gate at the entrance. Within are some marbles and memorial tablets of the Hurault family. It seems that the Huraults owned the Seignory of Cheverny as long ago as the fourteenth century, "before we Americans were discovered," as Miss Cassandra says. Early in the sixteenth century, one Raoul Hurault built a chateau here, of which little or nothing is left. The present chateau was built by a later Hurault, in 1634, and, after passing through several hands, it was bought, in 1825, by the Marchioness Hurault de Vibraye, and being thus returned to the family of the original owners, is still in their possession. A wonderful tale was this for American ears!