Ch. 2: Brittany - Page 2

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 boxes without help, and, catching up the shafts of the heavily laden cart, trotted away with it at a pace which caused the Americans (who prided themselves on their muscle) to stare after her in blank amazement.

When next seen she was toiling up a steep street, still ahead of the lazy boy, who slowly followed with the lighter load. It did not suit Lavinia's ideas of the fitness of things to have an old woman trundle three heavy trunks while she herself carried nothing but a parasol, and she would certainly have lent a hand if the vigorous creature had not gone at such a pace that it was impossible to overtake her till she backed her cart up before a door in most scientific style, and with a bow, a smile, and a courteous wave of the hand, informed them that 'here the ladies would behold the excellent Madame C.'

They did behold and also receive a most cordial welcome from the good lady, who not only embraced them with effusion, but turned her house upside down for their accommodation, merely because they came recommended to her hospitality by a former lodger who had won her kind old heart.

While she purred over them, the luggage was being bumped upstairs, the old woman shouldering trunk after trunk, and trudging up two steep