ateau to embark and
freshen the colour in his delicate face, so pale with languor. We could
not but feel and express a deep sympathy with one who loved the sea, but
whose pallid looks were in such contrast to the rough brown hue and
redundant health enjoyed so long by myself.

All was ataunt again, and then the two yachts started in company for a
run to Dieppe, which is only about thirteen miles distant. We came upon
a nest of twelve English yachts, all in the basin of this port, so my
French comrade spent the rest of his time gazing at their beauty, their
strength, their cleanliness, and that unnamed quality which distinguishes
English yachts and English houses, a certain fitness for their special
purpose. These graceful creatures (is it possible that a fine yacht can
be counted as an inanimate thing?) reclined on the muddy bosom of the
basin, but I would not put the Rob Roy there, it seemed so pent up and
torpid a life, and with the curious always gazing down from the lofty
quay right into your cabin, especially as next day I wished to have a
quiet Sunday.

Instead of a peaceful day of rest the Sunday at Dieppe was unusually
bustling from morning to night, for it was the "Fete Dieu" there. The
streets were dressed in gala, and strewed with green herbs, while along
the shop fronts was a broad festooned stripe of white calico, set off by
roses here and there; the shipping, too, was decked in flag array, and
guns, bells, and trombones ushered a long procession of schools and
soldiers and young people coming from their "first communion," who with
their priests, and banners, and relics, halted round temporary altars in
the open air, to recite and chant, while a vast crowd followed to gaze.

In a similar procession at St. Cloud, one division of the moving host was
of the tiniest little children, down to the lowest age that could manage
to toddle along with the hand of a mother or sister to help, and the
leader of them all was a chubby little boy, with no head-gear in the hot
sun but his curly hair, and with his arms and body all bare, except where
a lamb-skin hung across. He carried a blue cross, too, and the pretty
child looked bewildered enough. Some thought he was John the Baptist,
many more pronounced it a '_sottise_.'

In the canoe voyages {60} of the two preceding summers, I had found much
pleasure and interest in carrying a supply of books, pictures, and
periodicals, and illustrated stories in various langua