THE waiter having overcharged us for the groseille, we thought it only fair he should give us information for nothing. He told us the forest was just around the corner, which we could see for ourselves, and he directed us on our way with such care that we forgot his directions the next minute.

The forest is still “horrid and solitary,” as Evelyn has it, just as when he rode through it and between its “hideous rocks.” We do not know to this day in what part we were, nor what roads we followed. We made no effort to go out of our direct course in search of the placarded places which it is the tourist’s duty to visit.—We did think something of looking for the rock with the plaques set up on it, in memory of Millet and Rousseau. In telling us how to find it the waiter’s words had been many and explicit. But when we tried to recall them we could not; nor were we more successful in our endeavours to find the rock for ourselves. However, I do not think it mattered much. It was enough to know the way was beautiful and the road good.—No such perfect afternoon had come to us since our departure from Calais; and one reason of its perfection was, that our pleasure in the loveliness of the place was so great, we cared little or not at all for names and famous sights. If we return at some future day to Fontainebleau, we shall probably explore its valleys and rocks, its groves and thickets. But even were we never to go back, we should not wish that one ride to have been in any way different.

We rode for miles, and yet the only monotony was in the good road. Now, we passed great rocks, some grey and riven, moss and lichens clinging to them, and bushes and trees struggling from their crevices and growing on their summit; others bare and shadeless. Here, stretching from boulder to boulder, were deep beds of purple heather paled by the sun—the heather on which Millet used to love to lie and look up to the clouds and the blue sky; and there, feathered ferns, yellow and autumnal in the open spaces, green and fresh in the shade of rocks and trees, “made a luxurious couch more soft than sleep.”—Now the way went through the very heart of a pine wood; pine needles instead of heather covered the ground, and even carpeted the road; a spicy fragrance, sweetest of all sweet forest scents, perfumed the air; the wind sighed softly through the topmost branches, and the tricycle wheeled without a sound over the brown carpet, on which shadows fell and the sun shone.

Then the pine scent changed to a rich earthy smell, and to the right the pines gave way to beeches, tall and slim, growing in groups of two or three together, with here and there grassy glades leading to dense thickets; on the left a close undergrowth, high enough to shut out the prospect, made a hedge-like border to the road. And then again, on either hand, old moss-grown trees rose to a venerable height, their branches meeting overhead.

There is something in a forest, as in a cathedral, that makes one quiet. We rode for miles in silence. Then at last, in the green aisle, enthusiasm breaking all bounds——

“This is immense!” cried J——.

—And so indeed it was, in more than the American sense.

But even the vast forest of Fontainebleau cannot go on for ever.—We were not a little sorry when we wheeled out into an open space at the top of a long hill, where children were chattering and playing and two nuns were sitting on the grass. But we were sorrier when, at the beginning of the coast, the brake went all wrong and refused to work. The hill was steep. All we could do was to run into a bank by the road, when the machine stopped.