ng in a room, as the outer dining halls were all full.
Roland suddenly caught sight of some shrimping nets hanging against
the wall.

"Ah! ha!" cried he, "you catch prawns here?"

"Yes," replied Beausire. "Indeed it is the place on all the coast
where most are taken."

"First rate! Suppose we try to catch some after breakfast."

As it happened it would be low tide at three o'clock, so it was
settled that they should all spend the afternoon among the rocks,
hunting prawns.

They made a light breakfast, as a precaution against the tendency of
blood to the head when they should have their feet in the water. They
also wished to reserve an appetite for dinner, which had been ordered
on a grand scale and to be ready at six o'clock, when they came in.

Roland could not sit still for impatience. He wanted to buy the nets
specially constructed for fishing prawns, not unlike those used for
catching butterflies in the country. Their name on the French coast is
_lanets_; they are netted bags on a circular wooden frame, at the end
of a long pole. Alphonsine, still smiling, was happy to lend them.
Then she helped the two ladies to make an impromptu change of toilet,
so as not to spoil their dresses. She offered them skirts, coarse
worsted stockings and hemp shoes. The men took off their socks and
went to the shoemaker's to buy wooden shoes instead.

Then they set out, the nets over their shoulders and creels on their
backs. Mme. Rosemilly was quite sweet in this costume, with an
unexpected charm of countrified audacity. The skirt which Alphonsine
had lent her, coquettishly tucked up and firmly stitched so as to
allow of her running and jumping fearlessly on the rocks, displayed
her ankle and lower calf--the firm calf of a strong and agile little
woman. Her dress was loose to give freedom to her movements, and to
cover her head she had found an enormous garden hat of coarse yellow
straw with an extravagantly broad brim; and to this, a bunch of
tamarisk pinned in to cock it on one side, gave a very dashing and
military effect.

Jean, since he had come into his fortune, had asked himself every day
whether or no he should marry her. Each time he saw her he made up his
mind to ask her to be his wife, and then, as soon as he was alone
again, he considered that by waiting he would have time to reflect.
She was now less rich than he, for she had but twelve thousand francs
a year; but it was in real estate, in farms and lands near t