“Would you have us stay here for ever?” we asked, amused at Catherine’s idea of life and travel.

“Well, no,” she acknowledged; “I suppose not.  It would hardly do.  Morlaix, after all, is not exciting.  Only I am sorry you are going, and it makes me unjust to the rest of the world,” she acknowledged.  “We shall have a quiet time all this week, and I could have served you better than I did last.  But I don’t like Quimper.  There is not a decent hotel in the place, and I wouldn’t live there for a hundred francs a week.  I cannot breathe there; I grow limp.  It has a dreadful river right in front of the hotels—­you will have benefit.  I have heard that there are seventy-two separate smells in Cologne—­in Quimper the seventy-two are concentrated into one.”

This was not encouraging; but we knew that as Catherine’s strong nature saw things in extremes, so her opinions had to be taken cum grano salis.  In spite of what she said, we departed with much hope and expectation.

Everyone assisted in seeing us off the premises.  They declared it to be a melancholy pleasure, a statement hard to reconcile with their beaming faces.  Catherine alone was grave and immovable as the Man with the Iron Mask.  Yet she actually presented us—­this downright, determined, apparently unromantic woman—­with buttonholes of small white roses tied up with white ribbon:  ribbon that in our grandmothers’ days, I believe, was called love ribbon.

“We shall look quite bridal,” we said, as she placed them in the destined receptacle next our hearts.  “Catherine, why have you never married?”

Catherine laughed.  “Thereby hangs a tale,” she replied, actually blushing.  “It has not been for want of offers, you may be sure; I might have married twenty times over had I so wished.”  And so we gathered that Catherine, too, had had her little romance.  Perhaps it had helped to form her character, and develop her capacities.  “And now, be sure that some day you come back to Morlaix,” she added, as she finally accomplished her delicate task to her satisfaction.

“Shall we find you here?” we asked.  “You may have married and gone away.”

“To toil and slave like Madame Mirmiton!” cried Catherine.  “I would not marry if it was the President of the Republic, or even the Marquis de Carabas.  Besides, who would have me at my age?  No? no!  I know when I am well off.  Men, do you see, are not angels; they are much nearer allied to the opposite, sauf votre respect!  Of course, gentlemen, I admit, are angels—­sometimes.  But then, no gentleman would have me.  No; I am a fixture, here, every bit as much as the doors and the windows.  Monsieur and Madame and the hotel would go to ruin without me.”

And, although Monsieur and Madame assisted at this conference, Catherine’s statement went uncontradicted.  She was certainly their right hand, and added no little to the popularity of the establishment.