It was a rambling old inn, with winding staircases, dark and dirty, and guiltless of carpet.  The walls might have been painted at the beginning of the century, but hardly since.  “In fact,” said H.C., “they look quite mediaeval.”  There were passages long and gloomy, in which we lost ourselves.  Ancient windows let in any amount of draught and rain, and would have been the despair of old maids.  But we were given a large room, the very essence of neatness, and beds adorned with spotless linen.  A chambermaid waited upon us, dressed in a Breton cap that was wonderfully picturesque, and made us feel more in Brittany than ever.  She had long passed her youth, but possessed a frank and expressive face, and was superior to most of the hotel servants.  In early life she had lived with a noble family, and had travelled with them for many years.  She had seen something of the world.

Our windows looked on to the back of the hotel, in comparison with which the front was tame and commonplace.  Below us we saw an accumulation of gables and angles; a perfect sea of wonderful red roofs, with all the beauty and colouring of age.  Some of them possessed dormer windows, that just now reflected the afterglow of sunset; small dormer windows high up in the slanting roofs that perhaps had reflected the changes of light and shade, and day and night, for centuries.  Here and there we traced picturesque courtyards and gardens that were small oases of green in this wilderness of red-roofed buildings.  On the one side flowed the second river of Quimper, on the other, like a celestial vision, rose the wonderful cathedral.  A dream, a vision of Paradise, it did indeed look in this fast falling twilight.  The towers, crowned by their graceful spires, rose majestically above this sea of houses.  Beyond, one traced the outlines of pinnacle and flying buttress, slanting roof and beautiful windows.

We were just in time for table d’hote, and groped our way down the dark, winding stairs.  The way to the dining-room lay through the bureau, where Madame sat in state at her desk, entertaining a select party of friends, who had evidently called in upon her for a little scandal and conversation.  She was a tall, majestic woman, with a loud voice, and apparently a long life before her; but at a second visit we paid Quimper not long after, she, too, had passed into the regions that lie “beyond the veil.”

The dining-room was long and large and crowded.  Most of the people at table were evidently commercial travellers, and more or less habitues of the place.  All the women who served wore those wonderful Brittany caps, and quite redeemed the room from its common-place elements.