About sunset we came to a larger and quite civilized place, with a French name, signifying "The Tadpoles"--the place I have described at the commencement of this narrative. Our dusty fly and dejected horse turned into the carriage entrance of the first little hotel we saw. It stood sideways to a picturesque little lake, with green shores. The carriage entrance went through the house. Beyond, we had caught sight of a paved yard or court, and of a vista of green leafiness that looked cool and inviting. We heard the noisy jangling of a barrel-organ playing a polka, and we found a performance going on in the court that absorbed the attention of the whole household. No one seemed to hear, or at least to heed, the sound of our wheels, but, when our vehicle fairly stopped in the paved yard, a fishy-eyed waiter came toward us, jauntily flipping time with his napkin. We begged him to get us dinner instantly. "Way, Mosou," replied that official, in the sweet Belgian-French language, and let us out of the fly. We had been so long cramped up in it that we were glad to walk, and stand, and look about the court while our food was got ready. The organ-grinder had not ceased grinding out his polka for a moment. The wiry screams of his infernal machine seemed to charm him as much as they did the rest of the company assembled. He was the usual Savoyard, with a face like a burnt crust; all fire-brown eyes, sable ringlets, and insane grimace. He leaned against a low stone post, and ground out that horrible bray, like a grinning maniac. We walked to a short distance, and took in the scene. A little sallow young man, having a bushy mustache, stood near a door into the house, with a dish in his hand, as if he had been transfixed in the act of carrying it somewhere. Beside him, on the step of the door, sat a blonde young woman, with large blue eyes and a little mouth--as pretty and as _fade_ as a Carlo-Dolcian Madonna. Evidently these were the landlord and his lady. On a garden-bench, by the low wall that divided the court from the garden beyond, sat, a little apart, a young person of a decidedly French aspect, dressed quite plainly, but with Parisian precision, in black silk. In her hand and on her lap lay some white embroidery. She was not pretty, but had neat, small features, that wore a pleasant though rather sad smile, as she suspended her work to watch what was going on. An old woman in a dark-blue gown and a clean cap, with a pile of freshly-ironed linen in her arms, stood at the top of some steps leading into a little building which was probably the laundry. She was wagging her old head merrily to the dance tune. Other lookers-on lounged about, but some of them had vanished since our arrival--for instance, the fishy-eyed waiter and a burly individual in a white nightcap.