n the race
for existence; cafes and small hotels in the background.

Having plenty of time, we preferred to walk to the station, and
consigned our baggage to the care of a deaf and dumb man, who
disappeared with everything like magic, left us high and dry upon the
quay to follow more leisurely, and to hope that we were not the victims
of misplaced confidence. It looked very much like it.

A steep climb brought us to the heights of Dinard. Nothing could be more
romantic. Here were no traces of antiquity; everything was aggressively
modern; all beauty lay in scenery and situation. Humble cottages
embowered in roses and wisteria; stately chateaux standing in large
luxuriant gardens flaming with flowers, proudly secluded behind great
iron gates. At every opening the sea, far down, lay stretched before
us. Precipitous cliffs, rugged rocks where flowers and verdure grew in
wild profusion, led sheer to the water's edge. Land everywhere rose in a
dreamy atmosphere; St. Malo and St. Servan across the bay in the
distance. It was a wealth of vegetation; trees in full foliage, masses
of gorgeous flowers, that you had only to stretch out your hand and
gather; the blue sky over all. A scene we sometimes realise in our
dreams, rarely in our waking hours--as we saw it that day. On the
far-off water below small white-winged boats looked as shadowy and
dreamy as the far-off fleecy clouds above.

But we could not linger. We passed away from the town and the sea and
found ourselves in the country--the station seemed to escape us like a
will-o'-the-wisp. Presently we came to where two roads met--which of
them led to the station? No sign-post, no cottage. We should probably
have taken the wrong one--who does not on these occasions?--when happily
a priest came in sight, with stately step and slow reading his breviary.
Of him we asked the way, and he very politely set us right, in French
that was refreshing after the patois around us--he was evidently a
cultivated man; and offered to escort us.

As this was unnecessary, we thanked him and departed; and, arriving soon
after at the station, found our deaf and dumb porter had not played us
false. He was cunning enough to ask us three times his proper fare, and
when we gave him half his demand seemed surprised at so much liberality.
Conversation had to be carried on with paper and pencil, and by signs
and tokens.

The train started after a great flourish of trumpets. We had a journey
of many