ce to his parents.

She compared him to others, two or three dandies in Paris, clerks,
quill-drivers, or what not, who had pestered her with their attentions,
for the sake of her money. He seemed to be the best, as well as the most
handsome, man she had ever met.

To put herself more on an equality with him she related how, in her own
home, she had not always been so well-off as at present; that her
father had begun life as a fisherman off Iceland, and always held the
Icelanders in great esteem; and that she herself could clearly remember
as a little child, having run barefooted upon the beach, after her poor
mother's death.

Oh! the exquisite night of that ball, unique in her life! It seemed far
away now, for it dated back to December, and May had already returned.
All the sturdy partners of that evening were out fishing yonder now,
scattered over the far northern seas, in the clear pale sun, in intense
loneliness, while the dust thickened silently on the land of Brittany.

Still Gaud remained at her window. The market-place of Paimpol, hedged
in on all sides by the old-fashioned houses, became sadder and sadder
with the darkling; everywhere reigned silence. Above the housetops the
still brilliant space of the heavens seemed to grow more hollow, to
raise itself up and finally separate itself from all terrestrial things:
these, in the last hour of day, were entirely blended into the single
dark outline of the gables of olden roofs.

From time to time a window or door would be suddenly closed; some old
sailor, shaky upon his legs, would blunder out of the tavern and plunge
into the small dark streets; or girls passed by, returning home late
after their walk and carrying nosegays of May-flowers. One of them who
knew Gaud, calling out good-evening to her, held up a branch of hawthorn
high towards her as if to offer it her to smell; in the transparent
darkness she could distinguish the airy tufts of its white blossoms.
From the gardens and courts floated another soft perfume, that of the
flowering honeysuckle along the granite walls, mingled with a vague
smell of seaweed in the harbour.

Bats flew silently through the air above, like hideous creatures in a
dream.

Many and many an evening had Gaud passed at her window, gazing upon the
melancholy market-place, thinking of the Icelanders who were far away,
and always of that same ball.

Yann was a capital waltzer, as straight as a young oak, moving with a
graceful y