Every month of the year was a pleasure to the happy children at the Hôtel de Noailles, but to both vivacious Louise and quiet Adrienne summer was the crowning joy of their year, for then they were always taken to visit their grandfather, the Maréchal de Noailles, who cheerfully gave himself up to making the visit as gay for the children as possible. He played games with them in the house, delightful games such as they never played at home, and better yet, planned wonderful picnics for them, when with other cousins, and a governess in charge of the cavalcade, they rode on donkeys to the appointed spot. The governess, it is said, was a tiny person, blonde, pinched, and touchy, and very punctilious in the performance of her duties. Once mounted on her donkey, however, she entirely lost her dignity and appeared so wild-eyed, scared, and stiff that one could not look at her without feeling an irresistible desire to smile, which made her angry, though what angered her most was the peals of laughter when she tumbled off her donkey, as she seldom failed to do on an excursion. She usually fell on the grass and the pace of her donkey was not rapid, so she was never hurt, and the frolicsome children filed by her, for if one of them tried to help her up, as Adrienne always wanted to do, a scolding was the reward. In sharp contrast to the happy summer visits were those paid every autumn to the home of Madame D'Ayen's father, who lived at Fresnes. He was old and deaf and wished the children to be so repressed, that had Madame D'Ayen not made the visits as short as she could there would doubtless have been some disastrous outbreak in their ranks.