[Illustration:  A BRETON MAIDEN.]

The Company are not accommodating.  There are private cabins on board holding four, badly placed, uncomfortable, possessing the single advantage of privacy; but these managers would have them empty rather than allow two passengers to occupy one of them under the full fare of four.  This is unamiable and exacting.  In crowded times it may be all very right, but on ordinary occasions they would do well to follow the example of the more generous Norwegians, who place their state cabins holding four at the disposal of anyone paying the fare of three passengers.

After the long night-passage it is delightful to steam into the harbour of St. Malo.  If the sea has been rough and unkindly, you at once pass from Purgatory to Paradise, with a relief those will understand who have experienced it.  The scene is very charming.  The coast, broken and undulating, is rich and fertile; very often hazy and dreamy; the landscape is veiled by a purple mist which reminds one very much of the Irish lakes and mountains.

Across the water lies Dinard, with its lovely views, its hilly thoroughfares, its English colony and its French patois.  But the boat, turning the point, steams up the harbour and Dinard falls away.  St. Malo lies ahead on the left, enclosed in its ancient grey walls, which encircle it like a belt; and on the right, farther away, rise the towers and steeples of St. Servan, also of ancient celebrity.

On the particular morning of which I write, as we steamed up the harbour towards our moorings, the quays looked gay and lively, the town very picturesque.  It is so in truth, though some of its picturesqueness is the result of antiquity, dirt and dilapidation.  But the fresh green trees lining the quay looked bright and youthful; a contrast with the ancient grey walls that formed their background.  Vessels were loading and unloading, people hurried to and fro; many had evidently come down to see the boat in, and not a few were unmistakably English.

Here and there in the grey walls were the grand imposing gateways of the town.  Above the walls rose the quaint houses, roof above roof, gable beside gable, tier beyond tier.

At the end of the quay the old Castle brought the scene to a fine conclusion.  It was built by Anne of Brittany, and dates from the sixteenth century.  One of its towers bears the singular motto or inscription:  Qui qu’en grogne, ainsi sera, c’est mon plaisir:  which seems to suggest that the illustrious lady owned a determined will and purpose.  It is now turned into barracks; a lordly residence for the simple paysans who swelled the ranks of the Breton regiment occupying it at the time of which I write.  They are said to be the best fighting soldiers in France, these Bretons.  Of a low order of development, physically and mentally, they yet have a stubborn will which carries them through impossible hardships.  They may be conquered, but they never yield.