318 The Unknown River. 



miller's suit to overflowing, and looked like an overpacked 

 carpet-bag, whereas the present writer had the appear- 

 ance of a village school-boy who had suddenly outgrown 

 his habiliments. At first the miller's wife viewed us with 

 suspicion, but the doctor made himself so agreeable that 

 the cloud disappeared from her countenance, and the 

 light of it beamed upon us kindly. 



By this time it was dark, and our hostess took clean, 

 coarse sheets out of her polished presses, and laid them 

 on two of the four beds that were in the room. But the 

 doctor wrote a few words on a slip of paper, and sent it 

 to Toulon by a little boy, and in a while his carriage 

 came up to the mill with the boy in it, and under cover 

 of night we made our entry into the town, stili in our 

 borrowed clothes. The worthy innkeeper was just 

 going to bed when we arrived, but the active little mar- 

 mitons, in their white jackets and caps, set to work with 

 alacrity at their tiny charcoal fires and shining copper- 

 pans. And we sat down, in our queer costume, to the 

 best of suppers, with wonderful appetites and joyous 

 laughter. And so pleasantly ended our shipwreck ; but 

 it might have ended not so pleasantly as that. One 

 thing is certain, without the inflatable waistcoat the 

 doctor's patients would have benefited by his advice 

 no more. 



As this chapter has been written from the beginning 

 in open defiance of criticism, I may as well sin to the 

 very end, and speak of the faithful hound that followed 

 me. He needed no inflatable waistcoat, but came danc- 

 ing down the rapids like a cork, and never left us. He 



