k. The chief
hotels of the town are centred here, and some of the principal shops and
cafes. It is fairly bustling and lively, but not romantic.

We had been recommended to the Hotel de l'Epee as the best in Quimper,
and soon found ourselves entering its wide portals; a huge porte-cochere
that swallowed up at a single mouthful the omnibus and the piled-up
luggage that had quickly followed us from the station.

Ostlers and landlord immediately came forward with ladders and other
attentions, and we were soon domiciled.

It was a rambling old inn, with winding staircases, dark and dirty, and
guiltless of carpet. The walls might have been painted at the beginning
of the century, but hardly since. "In fact," said H.C., "they look quite
mediaeval." There were passages long and gloomy, in which we lost
ourselves. Ancient windows let in any amount of draught and rain, and
would have been the despair of old maids. But we were given a large
room, the very essence of neatness, and beds adorned with spotless
linen. A chambermaid waited upon us, dressed in a Breton cap that was
wonderfully picturesque, and made us feel more in Brittany than ever.
She had long passed her youth, but possessed a frank and expressive
face, and was superior to most of the hotel servants. In early life she
had lived with a noble family, and had travelled with them for many
years. She had seen something of the world.

Our windows looked on to the back of the hotel, in comparison with which
the front was tame and commonplace. Below us we saw an accumulation of
gables and angles; a perfect sea of wonderful red roofs, with all the
beauty and colouring of age. Some of them possessed dormer windows, that
just now reflected the afterglow of sunset; small dormer windows high up
in the slanting roofs that perhaps had reflected the changes of light
and shade, and day and night, for centuries. Here and there we traced
picturesque courtyards and gardens that were small oases of green in
this wilderness of red-roofed buildings. On the one side flowed the
second river of Quimper, on the other, like a celestial vision, rose the
wonderful cathedral. A dream, a vision of Paradise, it did indeed look
in this fast falling twilight. The towers, crowned by their graceful
spires, rose majestically above this sea of houses. Beyond, one traced
the outlines of pinnacle and flying buttress, slanting roof and
beautiful windows.

We were just in time for table d'hote, and grope