hidden under its thick brown straw
thatch, and looked like the back of some huge beast, shrunk down under
its bristling fur. Its walls were sombre and rough like the rocks, but
with tiny tufts of green moss and lichens over them. There were three
uneven steps before the threshold, and the inside latch was opened by a
length of rope-yarn run through a hole. Upon entering, the first thing
to be seen was the window, hollowed out through the wall as in the
substance of a rampart, and giving view of the sea, whence inflowed
a dying yellow light. On the hearth burned brightly the sweet-scented
branches of pine and beechwood that old Yvonne used to pick up along the
way, and she herself was sitting there, seeing to their bit of supper;
indoors she wore a kerchief over her head to save her cap. Her still
beautiful profile was outlined in the red flame of her fire. She looked
up at Gaud. Her eyes, which formerly were brown, had taken a faded
look, and almost appeared blue; they seemed no longer to see, and were
troubled and uncertain with old age. Each day she greeted Gaud with the
same words:

"Oh, dear me! my good lass, how late you are to-night!"

"No, Granny," answered Gaud, who was used to it. "This is the same time
as other days."

"Eh? It seemed to me, dear, later than usual."

They sat down to supper at their table, which had almost become
shapeless from constant use, but was still as thick as the generous
slice of a huge oak. The cricket began its silver-toned music again.

One of the sides of the cottage was filled up by roughly sculptured,
worm-eaten woodwork, which had an opening wherein were set the sleeping
bunks, where generations of fishers had been born, and where their aged
mothers had died.

Quaint old kitchen utensils hung from the black beams, as well as
bunches of sweet herbs, wooden spoons, and smoked bacon; fishing-nets,
which had been left there since the shipwreck of the last Moans, their
meshes nightly bitten by the rats.

Gaud's bed stood in an angle under its white muslin draperies; it seemed
like a very fresh and elegant modern invention brought into the hut of a
Celt.

On the granite wall hung a photograph of Sylvestre in his sailor
clothes. His grandmother had fixed his military medal to it, with his
own pair of those red cloth anchors that French men-of-wars-men wear on
their right sleeve; Gaud had also brought one of those funereal crowns,
of black and white beads, placed round the por