d our way down the dark,
winding stairs. The way to the dining-room lay through the bureau, where
Madame sat in state at her desk, entertaining a select party of friends,
who had evidently called in upon her for a little scandal and
conversation. She was a tall, majestic woman, with a loud voice, and
apparently a long life before her; but at a second visit we paid Quimper
not long after, she, too, had passed into the regions that lie "beyond
the veil."

The dining-room was long and large and crowded. Most of the people at
table were evidently commercial travellers, and more or less habitues of
the place. All the women who served wore those wonderful Brittany caps,
and quite redeemed the room from its common-place elements.

The shades of night had quite fallen upon the old town when we went out
to reconnoitre. It would only be possible to gain a faint and scarcely
true impression of what the town was like. At night, new things often
look old, and old new, outlines are magnified, and general effects are
altogether lost. The river ran down the quay like a dark and sluggish
thread; there was no poetry or romance about it. The banks were built up
with granite, which made it look more like a canal than a river. To be
at all picturesque it wanted the addition of boats and barges, of which
just now it was free and void. The trees whispered in the night breeze.
On the opposite bank, covering a large space, a fair was holding its
revelry; a small pandemonium; shows were lighted up with flaring gas,
and houris in spangles danced and threw out their fascinations. Big
drums and trumpets made night hideous. The high cliffs beyond served as
a sort of sounding-board, so that nothing was lost.

We turned away and soon found ourselves in the cathedral square. Before
us rose the great building in all its majesty, distinctly outlined
against the dark sky. In Brittany, one rather hungers for these fine
ecclesiastical monuments, Normandy is so full of them that we miss them
here. Brittany has the advantage in its old towns, but the mind
sometimes asks for something higher and more perfect than mere street
architecture.

[Illustration: BRITTANY PEASANT.]

Therefore, even to-night, in the darkness, we revelled and gloried in
the magnificent cathedral that stood before us in such grand
proportions. The spires seemed to touch the skies. The west front was in
deep shadow. We traced the outlines of flying buttresses, of heavier
buttresses b