Duvernoy being needful on account of the old duke, Prudence was one of those women who seem made on purpose for days in the country.

With her unchanging good-humour and her eternal appetite, she never left a dull moment to those whom she was with, and was perfectly happy in ordering eggs, cherries, milk, stewed rabbit, and all the rest of the traditional lunch in the country.
We had now only to decide where we should go.

It was once more Prudence who settled the difficulty.
"Do you want to go to the real country ?" she asked.
"Yes." "Well, let us go to Bougival, at the Point du Jour, at Widow Arnould's.
Armand, order an open carriage." An hour and a half later we were at Widow Arnould's.
Perhaps you know the inn, which is a hotel on week days and a tea garden on Sundays.

There is a magnificent view from the garden, which is at the height of an ordinary first floor.

On the left the Aqueduct of Marly closes in the horizon, on the right one looks across bill after hill; the river, almost without current at that spot, unrolls itself like a large white watered ribbon between the plain of the Gabillons and the island of Croissy, lulled eternally by the trembling of its high poplars and the murmur of its willows.