THE SYLVAN YEAR. 



i. 



A Woodland Estate — Le Val Sainte VeVonique — Scenery of the Valley. 



IN the heart of the forests between the vine-lands 

 of Burgundy and the course of the river Loire my 

 mother's family had for centuries possessed a property 

 which had descended to myself, but which I had visited 

 only on rare occasions. It required singularly little care 

 from its proprietor, being nearly the whole of it forest- 

 land, and the cuttings took place only once in twenty 

 years. The estate had been divided into five portions, 

 and the times of cutting had been so arranged that one 

 such period should recur every fourth year ; so we came 

 to the place each Leap-year, like the 29th of February. 

 There were about four hundred acres of woodland, and 

 it would be difficult to find, except on the slopes of the 

 Alps, a similar extent of country with so little that was 

 level. Seven miles from the nearest public road stood 

 our ancestral habitation. It occupied the bottom of a 

 little valley, and had for its title the name of the locality, 

 le Val Sainte Ve*ro7iique. The house was not a ch&teau, 

 nor was it (I rejoice to say) an ordinary maison bour~ 

 gcoise. It consisted of the remains of a monastic establish- 



