I was just telling Monsieur and Mademoiselle Juliette, that any man might be tempted to linger at Gemosac until the active years of a lifetime rolled by." The Marquis made the needful reply; hoping that he might yet live to see Gemosac--and not only Gemosac, but a hundred chateaux like it--reawakened to their ancient glory, and thrown open to welcome the restorer of their fallen fortunes.
Colville looked from one to the other, and then, with his foot in the stirrup, turned to look at Juliette, who had followed them to the gate.
"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.