running up the hill with the best. Being travellers ourselves in a

small way, we would fain have seen these other travellers alight.

The spectacle was over by the time we gained the top of the hill.

All the gold had withered out of the sky, and the balloon had

disappeared. Whither? I ask myself; caught up into the seventh

heaven? or come safely to land somewhere in that blue uneven

distance, into which the roadway dipped and melted before our eyes?

Probably the aeronauts were already warming themselves at a farm

chimney, for they say it is cold in these unhomely regions of the

air. The night fell swiftly. Roadside trees and disappointed

sightseers, returning through the meadows, stood out in black

against a margin of low red sunset. It was cheerfuller to face the

other way, and so down the hill we went, with a full moon, the

colour of a melon, swinging high above the wooded valley, and the

white cliffs behind us faintly reddened by the fire of the chalk

kilns.

The lamps were lighted, and the salads were being made in Origny

Sainte-Benoite by the river.

ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE

THE COMPANY AT TABLE

Although we came late for dinner, the company at table treated us

to sparkling wine. 'That is how we are in France,' said one.

'Those who sit down with us are our friends.' And the rest

applauded.

They were three altogether, and an odd trio to pass the Sunday

with.

Two of them were guests like ourselves, both men of the north. One

ruddy, and of a full habit of body, with copious black hair and

beard, the intrepid hunter of France, who thought nothing so small,

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