“The cake I offer you,” she remarked, “is peculiar to St. Pol de Leon.  There is a tradition that it has come to us from the days of St. Pol himself, and that the saintly monk-bishop made his daily meal of it.  But I feel very sure,” she added with a smile, “that those early days of fasting and penance never rejoiced in anything as refined and civilized and as good as this.”

And then for a little while we talked of Brittany and the Bretons; and if we could have stayed longer we should have heard many an anecdote and many an experience.  But time and a due regard to politeness forbade a “longer lingering,” charming as were the old lady’s manners and conversation, delightful the atmosphere in which she lived.  With mingled stateliness and grace she accompanied us to the wonderful garden and bade us farewell.

“This is your first visit to St. Pol,” she said, as she gave us her hand in the English fashion; “I hope it will not be your last.  Remember that if ever you come here again my doors will open to you, and a welcome will await you.  Only, let your next visit be a longer one.  You see that I speak with the freedom of age; and if you think me impulsive in thus tendering hospitality to one hitherto unknown, I must answer that I have lived in the world, and make no mistakes.  I believe also in a certain mental mesmerism, which rarely fails.  When I saw you enter, something told me that I might come to you.  Fare you well!—­Sans adieu!” she added as we expressed our gratitude and bent over her hand with an earnest “Au revoir!”

We went our way, both charmed into silence for a time.  I felt that we were thinking the same thoughts—­rejoicing in our happy fortune in these occasional meetings which flashed across the horizon of our lives and disappeared, not without leaving behind them an abiding effect; an earnest appreciation of human nature and the amount of leaven that must exist in the world.  We thought instinctively of Mdlle.  Martin, the little Receveuse des Postes de Retraite at Grace:  and of Mdlle. de Pressense at Villeneuve, who had welcomed us even as the Comtesse had now done; and we felt that we were favoured.

Time was up, and we decided to make this our last impression of St. Pol de Leon.  We passed down the quiet streets, under the shadow of the Creisker, out into the open country and the railway station.  We were just in time for the train to Roscoff, and in a very few minutes had reached that little terminus.

Immediately we felt more out of the world than ever.  There was something so primitive about the station and its surroundings and the people who hovered about, that this seemed a true finis terre.  It was, however, sufficiently civilized to boast of two omnibuses; curiously constructed machines that, remembering our St. Pol experience, we did not enter.  The town was only a little way off, and its church steeple served us as beacon.

We passed a few modern houses near the station, which looked like a settlement in the backwoods with the trees cut down, and then a short open road led to the quiet streets.