"They are both very good reasons," said Mr. Holiday. "Then, besides, when you get tired of riding there you can come inside."
Accordingly, when the carriage came to the door, Rollo, after seeing his father and mother safely seated inside, mounted on the top with the postilion, and so they rode away.
They repassed the bridge by which they had entered Geneva, and then turned to the right by a road which led along the margin of the lake, at a little distance from the shore.
The road was very smooth and hard, and the country was beautiful. Sometimes the road was bordered on each side by high walls, which formed the enclosures of gardens or pleasure grounds. Sometimes it was open, and afforded most enchanting views of the lake and of the ranges of mountains beyond. But what chiefly amused and occupied Rollo's mind was the novelties which he observed in the form and structure of every thing he saw by the wayside. Such queer-looking carts and wheelbarrows, such odd dresses, such groups of children at play, such gates, such farmyards, such pumps and fountains by the roadside—every thing, indeed, was new and strange.
After the party had been riding about an hour and a half, they passed through a village which consisted, like those which Rollo had seen on the road from Lyons, of compact rows of old and quaint-looking stone houses, close to the roadside. The postilion stopped at this village to give the horses a little drink.
"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, "I wish you would get down, and come inside a little while."
Rollo obeyed; and when the carriage began to go on again, his father addressed him as follows:
"We are going to see the residence of Madame de Stael. She was one of the most celebrated ladies that ever lived. She was distinguished as an authoress. You don't know any thing about her now, and I suppose you don't care much about her."
"No, sir," said Rollo; "I do not."
"But then," continued his father, "in a few years more you will very probably read some of her writings; and at any rate you will often hear of them. One of the most celebrated of her works is a tale called Corinne."