We were not near St. B., unless an hour by train can be called near, and our last afternoon in varied French society had not persuaded us that we were likely to shine in that sphere, but the habit of early years of subjection was too strong for us. We posted the letter of introduction, and when the answer came that Madame de Q. would hope to meet us at the station of St. B. at three o’clock on the day following our visit to St. Emilion, we said ‘Kismet,’ and tried to shake the Château Lafite dust from our Sunday hats. The journey to St. B. was hot and uneventful, and we spent the time it occupied mainly in the futile amusement of finding out in Bellows’ Dictionary words that fate was never destined to bring us into contact with. Outside the St. B. station we were accosted by one of those nondescript, smug, red-faced servants who are met with only in France, and were conducted by him towards a green alley of plane trees, in whose shade was standing a landau with one somnolent black horse in the shafts. A tall lady advanced to meet us, hook-nosed and handsome, dressed with awe-inspiring smartness, and with a chill perfection of manner that awoke in us a simultaneous longing to run away. She neither spoke nor understood English, so she gave us to understand at once; and another point about which she did not long leave us in doubt was that she would have ‘scorned the haction.’ Moreover, the monstrous hearse-horse had not shambled more than a mile or so, at a trot that [Illustration: THE COCHER.] was with difficulty maintained by adjurations and whip-crackings from the coachman, before we began to make the further discovery that we had already bored our hostess almost to tears. We cannot be surprised at it; the penetrating regret that we had ever started on the expedition would have paralysed our powers even of English conversation, and Ollendorff’s earliest exercise is a thrilling romance when compared with the remarks that we churned arduously forth for Madame de Q.’s benefit. It is true that she gave us no assistance. She leaned back and answered our questions without an effort either to appear less _ennuyée_ than she was, or to amplify her replies, while her eyes strayed from time to time to the novel that lay on the seat beside her--‘Les Confessions de some one or other. Par la Comtesse Dash,’ or some very similar title. She would not even discuss Mademoiselle, whom we played as our trump-card early in the game; in fact, she had never even seen her. Mademoiselle had been the governess of her stepdaughters, and had left before Madame’s marriage with Monsieur de Q. The old landau rumbled slowly on, up and down hill, with the interminable vineyards on either hand, and occasional hamlets with houses crowded close to the white dusty road. At one of these, brightly-coloured electioneering posters of some local hero seemed to offer something to talk about.