ithout
actually using one's eyes. It is the wooden chimney-stack, covered with oak
shingles, that surmounts the roofs of most of the cottages. Where the
shingles have fallen off, the cement rubble that fills the space between
the oak framing appears, but it is scarcely credible that, even with this
partial protection, these chimneys should have survived so many centuries.
I have asked the inmates of some of the cottages whether they ever feared a
fire in their chimneys, but they seemed to consider the question as totally
unnecessary, for some providence seems to have watched over their frail
structures.

St Hilaire has a brand new church and nothing picturesque in its long,
almost monotonous, street. Instead of turning aside at Pontaubault towards
Mont St Michel, we will go due north from that hamlet to the beautifully
situated Avranches. This prosperous looking town used, at one time, to have
a large English colony, but it has recently dwindled to such small
dimensions that the English chaplain has an exceedingly small parish. The
streets seem to possess a wonderful cleanliness; all the old houses appear
to have made way for modern buildings which, in a way, give Avranches the
aspect of a watering-place, but its proximity to the sea is more apparent
in a map than when one is actually in the town. On one side of the great
place in front of the church of Notre Dame des Champs is the Jardin des
Plantes. To pass from the blazing sunshine and loose gravel, to the dense
green shade of the trees in this delightful retreat is a pleasure that can
be best appreciated on a hot afternoon in summer. The shade, however, and
the beds of flowers are not the only attractions of these gardens. Their
greatest charm is the wonderful view over the shining sands and the
glistening waters of the rivers See and Selune that, at low tide, take
their serpentine courses over the delicately tinted waste of sand that
occupies St Michael's Bay. Out beyond the little wooded promontory that
protects the mouth of the See, lies Mont St Michel, a fretted silhouette of
flat pearly grey, and a little to the north is Tombelaine, a less
pretentious islet in this fairyland sea. Framed by the stems and foliage of
the trees, this view is one of the most fascinating in Normandy. One would
be content to stay here all through the sultry hours of a summer day, to
listen to the distant hum of conversation among white-capped nursemaids, as
they sew busily, giving mome