In and Out of Three Normandy Inns

held a friend; not a coif or a blouse passed without a greeting. The village, as a village, lived in the open street. Vil

s; doors and windows must be as open and accessible as the lives of the inhabitants. The houses themselves appeared to be regarded in the light of pockets, into which the ol

oom, and the open street was th

as here, under the tent of sky rather than beneath the stuffy roofs, that the vill

's world, than by one's self, in seclusion and solitude. Justice, at least, appeared to gain by this passion for open-air ministration, if one were to judge by the frequency with which the

self, have washed, and behold him returned, après un tout p'tit quart d'heure, stinking with filth? Bah! it's he that

: A VILLERVIL

tless, were pregnant with all the meaning of unspent youth. The figures of the fishermen, toiling up the street with bared legs and hairy breast, bending beneath their baskets alive with fish, stopped to have a word or two, seasoned with a laugh, with these latter groups. There were also knot

ear the younger generation and to train them to take up the same heavy burden of life. The coifs of these old hags made dazzling spots of brightness against the gray of the walls and the stuccoed houses; clustered together, the high c

distance from the village, attached to it only as a ragged fringe might edge a garment. It was a thatched hut; yet there were circumstances in the life of the owner which had transformed the interior into a luxurious apartment. The owner of the hut was herself hanging on the edge of life;

ndship. On this morning of our visit, many a gay one having preceded it, we found our friend arrayed as if for an

irs. "No, I'm not going out, not yet; there is plenty of time, plenty of time. It is you who are good, si aimables, to come out here to s

produced in turn, a different vintage and wine on each one of our visits, but no champagne. This was no wine for women-for the right women. Champagne was a bad, fast wine, for fast, disreputable people. "C'est un vrai poison, qui vous infecte," she had declared again and again, and when she saw her daughter drinking it, it made her shudder; she

the old figure straightens its crookedness to carry the dusty bottle securely, steadily, lest the cloudy settling at the bottom should be disturbed. What a merry little feast then began! We had learned where the glasses were kept; we had been busily scouring them while our hostess was below. Then wine and gla

making me gifts; she is one who remembers her old mother! Figure to yourselves that last year, in midwinter, she sent me no less than three gowns, all wool! Wh

lds till her nineteenth year, suddenly be transformed into a woman of the Parisian world, gain the position of a banker's wife, and be dancing, as the old mere kept telling us, at balls at the Elysée? Her mother never answered this riddle for us; and, more amazing still, neither could the village. The village would shrug its shoulders, when we questioned it, with discretion, concerning this enigma. "Ah, dame! It was she-the ol

omespun and the other in Worth gowns. There was no shame, that was easily seen, on either side; each apparently was full of pride in the other;

comes down to see me, I must shut fast all the doors and windows; she wants the whole of the smell, pour faire le vrai bouquet, as she says. If sh

s resting on a youthful figure, clad in Parisian draperies, and on a face rising above the draperies, that bent lovingly over the deep-throated fireplace, basking in

ing too-how do I know? And here am I, playing, like a lazy clout! Did you know she had had un nini this morning? The little angel came at dawn. That's a good sign! An

he sky; she also was shading her eyes. A child's round head, crowded into a white knit cap, was etched against the wide blue; and, kneeling, holding in both hands a seaman's long glass, was a girl, sweeping the horizon with swift, skilful stretches of arm and hand.

looking for him. It ought to be time, now; he's due about now. There's a man for you-good-bon comme le bon Dieu. Sober, saving too-go

eing the very obvious fact that the French Government was an idiot, and a tyrant into the bargain, since it imposed stupid laws no one meant to carry out; least of all a good Norman. What? pay two sous octroi on a bottle of one's own wine, that one had had in one's cellar for half a lifetime? To cheat the town out of

clasping her old port, that lay in the folds of her shawl. On her shrewd kindly old face came a light that touched it all at once with a glow of

fish-wives and the younger women softer and kindlier than common; the groups, as we passed them, were all talking of but one thing-of this babe th