cted to come across it. Well,
well, if you make up your mind to have a thing and search eagerly enough
for it, you are bound to obtain it in the long run.

Then another thought entered his mind: how much should he offer her for
it? Probably she would not part with it unless he named a sum which she
could not resist; yet if the sum were at all large she might suspect the
book's value and refuse. Ten francs, twenty-five, a hundred? While he was
deliberating this important point she was ascending the stairs. Should he
turn his back to her, shut his eyes, and tell her to place the volume on
the middle of the table, then suddenly turn about and gloat upon the
little treasure?

Before he could make up his mind she came in and he got his second
surprise that day. It was not as pleasant as the first, for in her hands
she held a thick octavo volume bound in shiny black leather. Heavens!
. . . a large-paper copy? . . . No, no, impossible. . . .

'Le voici, m'sieu.'

Our poor book-hunter's feelings almost overcame him, and he opened the
dirty manuscript volume mechanically, feebly muttering 'tres
interessant.' She watched him closely, and from that moment considered
him slightly mad. However, the book certainly did contain sixty-two
recipes for cooking eggs as well as receipts for making fancy pastry and
cakes. Whether it was copied out of the 'Pastissier' I know not; but
certain it is that the hostess had no knowledge of, nor had ever seen,
that volume.

There must be many book-treasures lying hid in all these ancient towns of
Northern France, towns also that lie far off the restless tourist's
track, small country towns in which the majority of the houses are
slipshod timbered relics of a bygone age. No striking or unusual feature
can they offer to the curious, and so for the most part they are
dismissed in brief by the guide book. Yet there is many an aged building
in Brittany where old books do still lie hid, as our bookman knows from
the library of a friend who lives in Finisterre. St. Brieuc, Guingamp,
Morlaix, Quimper, even Brest, all these must harbour long-forgotten
books.

But there are other towns which no power on earth shall force our
book-hunter to disclose. One there is far off the beaten track, where the
houses, painted with bright colours, lean all askew, supporting each
other and sometimes almost toppling across the narrow winding streets. So
that, entering it, one seems to have stepped suddenly into some s