'I told you it would bewitch us,' said Amanda; and then all took a farewell look, which lasted so long that they had to rush back to the hotel in most unseemly haste.
'Now to fresh châteaux and churches new,' sang Lavinia, as they rolled away on the fourth stage of their summer journey. A very short stage it was, and soon they were in an entirely new scene, for Amboise was a little, old-time village on the banks of the Loire, looking as if it had been asleep for a hundred years. The Lion d'Or was a quaint place, so like the inns described in French novels, that one kept expecting to see some of Dumas' heroes come dashing up, all boots, plumes, and pistols, with a love-letter for some court beauty in the castle on the hill beyond.
Queer galleries and stairs led up outside the house to the rooms above. The salle-à-manger was across a court, and every dish came from a kitchen round the corner. The garçon, a beaming, ubiquitous creature, trotted perpetually, diving down steps, darting into dark corners, or skipping up ladders, producing needfuls from most unexpected places. The bread came from the stable, soup from the cellar, coffee out of a meal-chest, and napkins from the housetop, apparently, for Adolphe went up among the weather-cocks to get them.
'No one knows us, no one can speak a word of English, and if we happen to die here it will never be known. How romantic and nice it is!' exclaimed Mat, in good spirits, for the people treated the ladies as if they were duchesses in disguise, and the young women liked it.
'I'm not so sure that the romance is all it looks. We should be in a sweet quandary if anything happened to our sheet-anchor here. Just remember, in any danger, save Amanda first, then she will save us. But if she is lost, all is lost,' replied Lavinia, darkly, for she always took tragical views of life when her bones ached.
Up the hill they went after breakfast; and balm was found for the old lady's woes in the sight of many Angora cats, of great size and beauty. White as snow, with tails like plumes, and mild, yellow eyes, were these charmers. At every window sat one; on every door-step sprawled a bunch of down; and frequently the eye of the tabby-loving spinster was gladdened by the touching spectacle of a blonde mamma in the bosom of her young family.
'If I could only carry it, I'd have one of those dears, no matter what it cost!' cried Lavinia, more captivated by a live cat than by all the dead Huguenots that Catherine de Medicis hung over the castle walls on a certain memorable occasion.
'Well, you can't, so come on and improve your mind with some good, useful history,' said Amanda, leading them forward. 'You must remember that Charles VII. was born here in 1470—that Anne of Brittany married him for her first husband, and that he bumped his head against a low door in the garden here above, as he was running through to play bowls with his Anne, and it killed him.'
'Which? the bump or the bowls?' asked Mat, who liked to have things clearly stated.
'Don't be frivolous, child. Here Margaret of Anjou and her son were reconciled to Warwick. Abd-el Kader and his family were kept prisoners here, and in the garden is a tomb with a crescent on it; likewise a "pleached walk," and a winding drive inside the great tower, up which lords and ladies used to ride straight into the hall,' continued the sage Amanda, who yearned to enlighten the darkness of her careless friends.