APRIL 



77 



Creme Brftl^e. Boil one pint of cream for one 

 minute, pour it on the yelks of four very fresh eggs well 

 beaten, then put it again on the fire and let it just come 

 to the boil. Pour it into the dish in which it is to be 

 served, and let it get cold. Strew a thick crust of 

 powdered sugar over it, put it in a slow oven for ten 

 minutes, then brown it with a salamander, and serve it 

 cold. j 



April 5th. We started to-day to spend a week in a 

 French country house, sleeping one night on our way at 

 beautiful Chartres, which, as I am not writing a guide- 

 book, I shall not describe. The weather was bitterly cold ; 

 and when we humbly asked at the hotel for some hot 

 water, the answer we got was ' On n'dchauffe plus.' 

 The French submit more meekly than we do to this 

 kind of regulation, which is curious, as they are so 

 much more sensible, as a rule, than we are in most of 

 the details of life. I was interested to see in the small 

 court of the hotel a quantity of most flourishing Hepat- 

 icas. These flowers, Mr. Bright tells us, defeated all 

 his efforts in his Lancashire garden. I have tried them 

 in various aspects, but they make a sorry show with 

 me in Surrey. In this little back-yard they shone in the 

 sunshine, pink and blue, double and single. I suppose 

 the secret is that they do not mind cold, but they want 

 sun. I wonder if anyone is very successful with them 

 in England ? How I remember them, in the days of my 

 youth, pushing through the dead leaves in the little oak 

 woods in the valleys up the country behind Nice, then, as 

 now, * Le pays du Soleil,' but probably long since all 

 changed into villas and gardens instead of woods and 

 fields. 



A French country house ! How different it all is ! In 

 some ways we manage best, in others they do. This 

 was rather a cosmopolitan than a typically French house, 



