foolishness, she sat up straight and said: "You did? Oh! I wish I had known there were leopard skins in Poitiers,--I just love them." [Illustration: Marjorie and Mrs. Shurtleff, with the Leopard Skin] Tours was our next stop. We went straight to the cathedral, which is very lovely. As we walked around toward the back, I saw a beautiful black dog tied to a little push-cart and approached it making appropriate remarks. Quick as a wink it jumped up and bit me, tearing my dress, but giving me only a scratch. This was considered very funny, as I had been remarking what a way I had with animals. I have since learned that such dogs are trained to bite anything that approaches the push-cart in its master's absence. Marje was particularly anxious to go the rounds of the antique shops in Tours. Her mother and father had once spent a good deal of time there, and she was anxious to see the city and also to try to match some china that her mother had bought there. I usually stiffen my neck and keep my eyes front when I see an antique shop and especially since Leo has come into my life! I have been really meticulous in my studied inattention! But here we positively ran into the jaws of the enemy. Marje bought a million dollars' worth of gorgeous dark blue and gold cups, the kind that are supposed to be made only in Tours. I came off with a little imitation one for two francs, fifty centimes, which will mean as much to me when I drink tea from it with Leo at my back. From Tours we ran along the edge of the Loire. We were weary of asking for essence, so you can imagine our delight to be able to get as much as we wanted just outside of the city. You see, essence is practically unobtainable in Paris, and at best at a very high figure, so that we were anxious to get enough to run on for a while until we should be able to get a special order from the Ministère de la Guerre on account of ours being a work for charity. We spent that night at Amboise. It was bitterly cold, but wonderfully picturesque. The hotel faced on the water front, and up the hill, and on the right, was a lovely château. The "Cheval blanc," as the hotel is called, was very quaint, but, like all things quaint, as cold as an iceberg. We sat around the little stove in the dining-room after dinner and did our accounts, no simple matter. We got to laughing so over the state of our affairs that our additions and subtractions--chiefly subtractions--showed the effects, no doubt. That famous black velvet hat of mine I had worn down in the train when I went to Pau, not knowing that I should make the trip home in a Ford ambulance. Fortunately I had my little brown hat with me to wear back, but the body of the car was so congested, with our gasoline, our suitcases, the thermos bottles, Marje's china, and the automobile tools, that the hat suffered considerably--to put it mildly.