like none since the
night the wreck of _La Belle Marie_ came ashore," chimed in the one with
the blue eye, as he placed his elbows on the clean marbletop table and
made room for my chair. "_Mon Dieu!_ You should have seen the ducks
south of the Wolf. Aye, 'twas a sight for an empty stomach."

The one with the leathery hand nodded his confirmation sleepily.

"_Helas!_" continued the one with the blue eye. "If monsieur could only
have been with us!" As he spoke he lifted his shaggy eyebrows in the
direction of the church and laughed softly. "He's happy with his
northeast wind; I knew 'twould be a short mass."

"A good catch?" I ventured, looking toward him as Madame Vinet brought
my glass.

"Eight thousand mackerel, monsieur. We should have had ten thousand had
not the wind shifted."

"_Ben sur!_" grumbled the one with the leathery hand.

At this Madame Vinet planted her fists on her ample hips. "_Helas!_
There's the Mere Coraline's girl to be married Thursday," she sighed,
"and Planchette's baby to be christened Tuesday, and the wind in the
northeast, _mon Dieu!_" And she went back to her spotless kitchen for a
sou's worth of black coffee for a little girl who had just entered.

Big, strong, hearty Madame Vinet! She has the frankness of a man and the
tenderness of a mother. There is something of her youth still left at
forty-six; not her figure--that is rotund simplicity itself--but in the
clearness of her brown eyes and the finely cut profile before it reaches
her double chin, and the dimples in her hands, well shaped even to-day.

And so the little girl who had come in for the sou's worth of coffee
received an honest measure, smoking hot out of a dipper and into the
bottle she had brought. In payment Madame Vinet kissed the child, and
added a lump of sugar to the bargain. From where I sat I could see the
tears start in the good woman's eyes. The next moment she came back to
us laughing to disguise them.

"Ah, you good soul!" I thought to myself. "Always in a good humour;
always pleasant. There you go again--this time it was the wife of a poor
fisherman who could not pay. How many a poor devil of a half-frozen
sailor you have warmed, you whose heart is so big and whose gains are so
small!"

I rose at length, bade the two old salts good morning, and with a
blessing of good luck, recovered my gun from the kitchen cupboard, where
I had reverently left it during mass, and went on my way to shoot. I,
too, was an