iful and so cold! You do not comprehend that I am
but a child. Pardon, and smile again I conjure you.'

But Mademoiselle would not smile; and, folding her hands in her cloak,
appeared to slumber. Whereat the gray-headed infant groaned
pathetically, cast his eyes heavenward, and drank more ale, muttering to
himself, and shaking his head as if his emotions could not be entirely
suppressed.

These proceedings caused Lavinia to keep her eye on him, being prepared
for any outbreak, from a bullet all round to proposals to both her
charges at once.

With this smouldering bomb-shell inside, and the firm conviction that
one if not all the trunks were lying in the dust some miles behind, it
may be inferred that duenna Livy did not enjoy that break-neck drive,
lurching and bumping up hill and down, with nothing between them and
destruction apparently but the little humpback, who drove recklessly.

In this style they rattled up to the Porte de Brest, feeling that they
had reached Dinan 'only by the grace of God,' as the beery man expressed
it, when he bowed and vanished, still oppressed with the gloomy
discovery that American women did not appreciate him.

While Amanda made inquiries at an office, and Matilda had raptures over
the massive archway crowned with yellow flowers, Lavinia was edified by
a new example of woman's right to labour.

Close by was a clean, rosy old woman, whose unusual occupation attracted
our spinster's attention. Whisking off the wheels of a _diligence_, the
old lady greased them one by one, and put them on again with the skill
and speed of a regular blacksmith, and then began to pile many parcels
into a _char_ apparently waiting for them.

She was a brisk, cheery old soul, with the colour of a winter-apple in
her face, plenty of fire in her quick black eyes, and a mouthful of fine
teeth, though she must have been sixty. She was dressed in the costume
of the place: a linen cap with several sharp gables to it, a gay
kerchief over her shoulders, a blue woollen gown short enough to display
a pair of sturdy feet and legs in neat shoes with bunches of ribbons on
the instep and black hose. A gray apron, with pockets and a bib,
finished her off; making a very sensible as well as picturesque costume.

She was still hard at it when a big boy appeared, and began to heave the
trunks into another _char_; but gave out at the second, which was
large. Instantly the brisk old woman put him aside, hoisted in the big