“And mademoiselle,” he said; “will she wish us good luck, also? Alas! those times are gone when we could have asked for her ribbon to wear, and to fight for between ourselves when we are tired and cross at the end of a journey. Come, Barebone--into the saddle.” They waited, both looking at Juliette; for she had not spoken. “I wish you good luck,” she said, at length, patting the neck of Colville's horse, her face wearing a little mystic smile. Thus they departed, at sunset, on a journey of which old men will still talk in certain parts of France. Here and there, in the Angoumois, in Guienne, in the Vendee, and in the western parts of Brittany, the student of forgotten history may find an old priest who will still persist in dividing France into the ancient provinces, and will tell how Hope rode through the Royalist country when he himself was busy at his first cure. The journey lasted nearly two months, and before they passed north of the Loire at Nantes and quitted the wine country, the vintage was over. “We must say that we are cider merchants, that is all,” observed Dormer Colville, when they crossed the river, which has always been the great divider of France. “He is sobering down. I believe he will become serious,” wrote he to the Marquis de Gemosac. But he took care to leave Loo Barebone as free as possible. “I am, in a way, a compulsory pilot,” he explained, airily, to his companion. “The ship is yours, and you probably know more about the shoals than I do. You must have felt that a hundred times when you were at sea with that solemn old sailor, Captain Clubbe. And yet, before you could get into port, you found yourself forced to take the compulsory pilot on board and make him welcome with such grace as you could command, feeling all the while that he did not want to come and you could have done as well without him. So you must put up with my company as gracefully as you can, remembering that you can drop me as soon as you are in port.” And surely, none other could have occupied an uncomfortable position so gracefully. Barebone found that he had not much to do. He soon accommodated himself to a position which required nothing more active than a ready ear and a gracious patience. For, day by day--almost hour by hour--it was his lot to listen to protestations of loyalty to a cause which smouldered none the less hotly because it was hidden from the sight of the Prince President's spies. And, as Colville had predicted, Barebone sobered down. He would ride now, hour after hour, in silence, whereas at the beginning of the journey he had talked gaily enough, seeing a hundred humorous incidents in the passing events of the day; laughing at the recollection of an interview with some provincial notable who had fallen behind the times, or jesting readily enough with such as showed a turn for joking on the road.