A little more than a month, then, after the funeral of the old Marquis of St. Real, in a part of the forest where a few years before the axe had been busy amongst the taller trees, there appeared a group of several persons, two of whom have already been introduced to the notice of the reader. The spot in which they were seated was a small dry grassy strip of meadow by the side of a clear little stream, which at a hundred yards distance crossed the high road from Touraine. From the bank of the stream the ground rose very gradually for some way, leaving a space of perhaps fifty yards in breadth free of underwood or bush. It then took a bolder sweep, and became varied with manifold trees and shrubs; and then, breaking into rock as it swelled upwards, it towered into a high and craggy hill, diversified with clumps of the fine tall beeches which the axe had spared, and clothed thickly, wherever the soil admitted it, with rich underwood, springing up from the roots of larger trees long felled. On the other side again, the ground sloped away so considerably, that had the stream flowed straight on, it would have formed a cataract; and as the eye rested on the clear water, winding in a thousand turns within a very short distance of the edge of the descent, and seeming to seek a way over without being able to find it, one felt as we do in gazing upon a child in a meadow looking for something it has lost, which we ourselves see full well, yet cannot resolve to point out, lest the little seeker should desist from all the graceful vagaries of his search. Various bends and knolls, however, confined the rivulet to the course it had taken; but still the whole ground on that side was low, and at one point sunk much beneath the spot where the travellers before mentioned were seated, affording--over the green tree-tops--a beautiful view of a long expanse of varied ground, lying sweet in the misty light of summer, with many a wide and undulating sweep, fainter and more faint, till some grey spires marked the position of a distant town, and cut the line of the horizon.