FORTUNATELY the town really was Beaumont, and the first inn tolerably decent—so decent we wondered as to our reception. With due respect for the clean floors, we waited humbly at the threshold until the landlady appeared.——

“We are very wet,” said I in French, as if this was not a self-evident truth.

“Oh!” said she in unmistakable insular English. “Fancy!”

—Here was a stroke of good luck! A Frenchwoman would have measured our respectability by our looks; an Englishwoman could judge us by our love for sport. She sent a boy with J—— to put away the tricycle, and bade me follow her. Where we had stood were two pools of water. She took my gossamer; a muddy stream ran down the passage. I made a wet trail wherever I went. I followed the landlady up two flights of stairs into a well-furnished bedroom. I thought that now our troubles were at an end. But when J—— joined me I found there were two more to add to the list.—It seemed that just as he unstrapped the bag the luggage-carrier snapped at the top. And still worse, the constant swinging of the carrier had worked the bag partly open, and half its contents were well soaked. We managed to get together a few dry flannels, and then piled the rest of our wardrobe, from hats to shoes, outside the door—a melancholy monument to our misfortunes. The landlady, returning just then with two glasses of hot brandy and water, promised to carry our clothes downstairs and have them dried at once.

So far, so good; but what was to be done next? To remain in our present thin attire meant certain colds, if nothing more serious. There was but one alternative, and we accepted it. When the landlady unceremoniously opened the door and saw us sitting up in the two little beds, solemnly staring at each other as we sipped the brandy and water, she was so embarrassed she forgot her English and broke out in French. It was fluent, but little else could be said for it. In a minute she was out of the room; in another she was knocking discreetly, and telling us there were dressing-gowns and shawls and slippers without at our service. She was of the opinion that bed was no place for us, and would not hear of our staying there. We must

come into her private sitting-room, where there was a fire. As a rule private sitting-rooms and fires in September are not insignificant items in a bill. But she would hear of no excuse, and waited by the door until we dressed, after a fashion.

I flattered myself that I, in her neat wrapper, with a little white ruffle in the neck, made quite a presentable appearance. J——’s costume, consisting of her husband’s dressing-gown and a short kilt improvised out of a plaid-shawl, was more picturesque, but less successful.—It was still so wet without that we found comfort in the great wood fire in her room. She gave us easy-chairs, one on either side, and for our entertainment produced Thornbury’s illustrated London. But we were more taken up in looking at each other, and were reasonably serious only when she was in the room.

At half-past six she announced dinner, adding that our clothes were not yet dry, though a large fire had been kindled for their express benefit. I looked at J——. No, it was simply impossible to appear at the table d’hÔte with him in his present costume. Before I had time to tell him so——

“You can’t go down as you now are,” said he to me.

—The landlady was of the same mind, for a pretty little maid, coming in just then, laid the cloth on the table in the centre of the room. I thought of our bill the next morning. Private dining-rooms, like private sitting-rooms, are luxuries not to be had for nothing.

The dinner was good, and the little maid, be it said to her credit, behaved with great propriety. So long as she was in attendance she never once smiled. However, I cannot answer for her gravity on the other side of the door.

It was half-past eight when the landlady said good-night, assuring us everything would be ready early in the morning.—But we went to bed at once. The last thing we heard before we fell asleep was the rain still pouring into the waters of the Oise and upon the paved streets of Beaumont.