ong the paths (of real sand) a score of little dolls walking, all
dressed in the uniform of the Grey Nuns. I declare it was so real, you
could almost hear the fountain playing, with its _jet d'eau_ of
transparent beads strung on an invisible wire.

"But how pretty, mademoiselle!" I cried.

She clasped her hands nervously. "But is it _like_, Yann? It is so
long ago that I may have forgotten. Tell me if it is like; or if there
is anything wrong. I promise not to be offended."

"It is exactly like, mademoiselle."

"See, here is the Mother Superior; and this is Soeur Gabrielle. I have
to make the dresses full and stiff, or they wouldn't stand up.
And that, with the blue eyes, is Soeur Hyacinthe. She walks with me--
this is I--as she always did. And what do you think? With the fifteen
dolls that you have brought I am going to have a real Pardon, and
townspeople and fisher people to stand and worship at the altar of the
Virgin, there in the corner. I made it of wax, and stamped the face
with a seal that Charles gave me. He was to have been my husband when I
left the school."

"Indeed, mademoiselle?"

"Yes, but the soldiers burnt his house. It was but a week after I left
the school, and the Chateau Sant-Ervoan lay but a mile from my mother's
house. He fled to us, wounded; and we carried him to the coast--there
was a price on his head, and we, too, had to flee--and escaped over to
England. He died on this bed, Yann. Look--"

She lifted a candle, and there on the bed's ledge I read, in gilt
lettering, some words I have never forgotten, though it was not until
years after that I got a priest to explain them to me. They were
"C. DE. R. COMES ET ECSUL. MDCCXCIII."

While I stared, she set the candle down again and gently drew the
curtains round the bed.

"Rise now and dress, dear child, or your supper will be cold and the
farmer impatient. You have done me good. Although I have written the
farmer's letters for him, it never seemed to me that I wrote to living
people: for all I used to know in Brittany, ten years ago, are dead.
For the future I shall write to you."

She turned at the door as she said this, and that was the last I ever
saw of her. For when I passed out of the room, dressed and ready for my
journey, it was quite dark on the landing, where she met and kissed me.
Then she slipped a little packet into my hand.

"For the dolls," she said.

In the kitchen I slipped it out of my pocket and