Our drive was delightful over the green turf beneath the arched vista of the old avenue. The rain-drops glittered on every leaf, and the turf, moistened by the shower, after the long drought, sent up a delicious fragrance beneath each pressure of our horses’ feet. The prince was alone in his carriage, with his dog Carlo. There was but one person in the whole world whom he ever allowed to take the seat beside him in his drives, and she was that day absent from Valençay. There was something touching and poetical in the solitary figure as he reclined back, leaning on his cane, not gazing on the landscape, but musing, abstracted and motionless, save that from time to time he would bend slightly forward, and pat old Carlo fondly on the neck, as if his train of thought had led him into recollections of the long attachment of the faithful animal, contrasting it, perhaps, with the treachery and ingratitude which he had met with in man. In the poetic fervour of the moment I could not help hazarding this supposition to my friend, who laughed heartily at my youthful enthusiasm, but declared that it was never so ill-bestowed, for that it had been subject of astonishment that the Prince was never known to give way, after the fashion of age, to any of those loud and bitter railings against the injustice and ingratitude of mankind, which sometimes render the society of elderly persons liable to the complaint of querulousness and discontent, and yet none had ever perhaps better cause of complaint than he has had.