WE rested so well in our little iron beds that in the morning we took a long walk through Cosne before we went back to work. We found it chiefly remarkable for its high sweeping roofs and striking weather-vanes.

The ride from Cosne was very much like that from Montargis, only, fortunately, there was less wind, and the wide poplared Loire was on our left from our start. Between us and it, however, were the pleasant fields and meadows through which Mr. Evelyn, with Mr. Waller and some other ingenious persons, footed it, and shot at birds and other fowls, or else sang and composed verses during

their voyage up the river.—Though we never dropped into poetry or song, with us, as with them, nothing came amiss. Everything was a pleasure, from the clouds chasing each other lazily above the Loire and occasionally uncovering the sun, showing us how hot the day might be, to the old women and little girls in blue skirts and sabots, each watching one cow or a couple of white turkeys or geese, whom we met at intervals all day long; from the seemingly endless kilometres of level white road between poplars to the too short down-grade between vineyards into Pouilly. The only incident throughout the morning was the discovery of two men stealing grapes from a vineyard. We took them to be its owners, and would have offered to buy their fruit had they not at once looked to us for sympathy with a friendly smile that showed they had no right to be there.—It was just after Pouilly, we passed a little solitary inn that facetiously announced on its sign: “To-day one pays money; to-morrow, nothing.”

At noon we climbed into La CharitÉ, though I think we might have been spared the climb had we followed the road on the river-bank. As it was, we entered the town at the upper end, under its old gateway, topped with grey stone figures, and had a good view of its massive walls and fortifications. Within the ramparts we found a winding street descending precipitately towards the Loire, a church in ruins, and people with

absolutely nothing to do. As if glad of an occupation, they gathered around the tricycle and examined it with their eyes and hands; and while a waiter in a cafÉ bestirred himself to overcharge us, and a man in a cake-shop, with unlooked-for energy, sold us his stalest cakes, they even went so far as to roll it up and down to test the tyres.—Nor was this curious idle crowd to be got rid of so long as we were in La CharitÉ, and our stay there was not short; for as we followed the

windings of the street, just as it widened into a Place before turning to take a straight course towards the river, we came out upon the old church doorway, its countless niches empty, or filled with headless statues. Grass-grown steps led up to it, and one tall tower, with carven decorations half effaced, but rows of low arcades uninjured, rose at its side from the top of a small house; on its lowest arch was a staring announcement of Le Petit Journal. But of church walls, or of door to open or close, there was no sign. The arched entrance gave admittance into a large court. We stopped at the opposite corner, and J—— had his sketch-book out in a minute, to the evident satisfaction of the people. But a woman from a near cafÉ, as idle but more friendly than the rest, came over to say it was a pity Monsieur could not get a photograph of the ruin; a photograph was so much prettier than a drawing. J——jumped at this sensible suggestion, and she sent him to a notary on the fourth floor of a house in a back street. But this gentleman was out; and as the photographer of La CharitÉ, apparently, was the last person to be applied to, J—— had to content himself with a sketch after all.—While he was at work the same woman, whose only duty seemed to be to do us the honours of the place, showed me the old church.

When I went back J—— was still struggling with the sketch, and with small boys who could not keep their hands off the machine. Women stood around him in a semicircle, passing a baby, which they called cher petit chiffon, from one to the other, and only leaving space for an inner ring of workmen. Before I heard the words of the latter

I knew by their gestures they were discussing the famous velocipede with the tall wheels.—We asked them about the race won by the Englishman.—It was no great thing, one said. The weather had been against it, and there was not much of the world there. Some people started to come from other countries in the cars. But the porters and conductors told them there were no races at La CharitÉ, and so they went on or back, he was not sure which. The Englishman had gone away again, he did not know where.—I suppose the mistake was natural. Few tourists who travel by rail stop at La CharitÉ, though it is a pretty town, as Mr. Evelyn says.

Following the Loire, the sand-banks in its centre widening, the green wilderness growing greener and wilder, the town on the far hilltop fading softly into blue shadow, we came, in the middle of the afternoon, to Pougres-les-Eaux, a fashionable invalid resort.

—After this, there was but a short way to go by the river. And though the little safety-wheel now worked loose from no possible cause, unless, perhaps, because it had not been used once in all our ride; and though the rubber fastening in the lamp needed attention every few minutes, we reached Nevers—entering by the gate where Gerars so cunningly played and sang—early enough to see the town and the cathedral.