tourists go far to visit. Here she sought fresh frames for her novels. "If I have only three words to say about a place," she tells us, "I like to be able to refer to it in my memory so as to make as few mistakes as possible,"
In January 1869 we find her writing of herself in a playful strain to her friend Flaubert:—
The individual called George Sand is quite well, enjoying the marvellous winter now reigning in Berry, gathering flowers, taking note of interesting botanic anomalies, stitching at dresses and mantles for her daughter-in-law, costumes for the marionettes, dressing dolls, reading music, but above all, spending hours with little Aurore, who is a wonderful child. There is not a being on earth more tranquil and happier in his home than this old troubadour retired from business, now and then singing his little song to the moon, singing well or ill, he does not particularly care, so long as he gives the motif that is running in his head . . . . . . he is happy, for he is at peace, and can find amusement in everything.
M. Plauchut, another literary friend and a visitor at Nohant during this last decade of her lifetime, gives a picture of the order of her day; it is simplicity itself.
Nine o'clock, in summer and in winter alike, was her hour of waking. Letters and newspapers would then occupy her until noon, when she came down to join the family déjeûner. Afterwards she would stroll for an hour in the garden and the wood, visiting and tending her favourite plants and flowers. At two o'clock she would come indoors to give a lesson to her grand-children in the library, or work there on her own account, undistracted by the romps around her. Dinner
