The Argosy — page 243: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

224 FAIR NORMANDY By CHarRLES W. Woop, F.R.G.S., AuTHOR oF ** THROUGH HoLuanp,” ‘*‘ LETTERS FROM MajorCa,’’ ETC. ETC. a = WE arrived one night at the old ip i ae cathedral town of Evreux. It was very dark, and it was growing late. The hotel omnibus, waiting at the station, tore away with our two ' selves and a lady very much taken up | with a bundle. She, however, was not “going to the hotel. We had no sooner i estes - rattled down a long, dark, narrow “NU 3 = ageae| Street, with noise enough to wake the eS ae . dead, and sharply turned a corner, than it drew up at the door of a very modest mansion. The lady was evidently expected ; ome “gary, the door opened as by magic; two meaneenees— blooming damsels with a simultaneous st % i Ro) ~ cry of ‘La chere maman! ” smothered iH : alah i bi ri the dear mamma in embraces, as if ee, she had been absent from home twelve CHARTRES. years instead of twelve hours. The omnibus was paid; the happy trio, all sharing the burden of the bundle, entered this abode of bliss ; and the door was closed. Another act in a little domestic drama was over; the curtain was down, and the audience, that is to say, the omnibus, departed. We really felt depressed ; as if we ought to have shared in that welcome: that happy home-coming; but we were shut out from it. Ours, however, awaited us in a far-off land. We were not of the hermits of the earth. We now had the omnibus to ourselves. It rattled on through more narrow streets, all dark as Erebus. It was ten o’clock, and the worthy people of Evreux had evidently retired. ‘They are wise people, and carry out the old proverb ; we will hope they also have their reward, and are wealthy. | The streets, I say, were dark. If they had gas at Evreux, the gas had evidently been put out at nine o’clock, in obedience, possibly, to a curfew bell as silver-toned as that we had lately left at Rouen. There is such a thing as social as well as political economy ; and in a town where murders and burglaries, and all the other wickednesses of this world are unknown, why burn gas when people are sleeping ? GEomichbooks.co