CHAPTER XLIII

BREST, 15_th June_, 1878.

In the early morning I set out for Toulven where Yves has been awaiting me since yesterday.

The weather is magnificent. Old Brittany is green and decked with flowers. Along the road are large woods and rocks.

Yves is waiting for me on the arrival of the diligence which I caught at Bannalec. Beside him is a girl of eighteen or nineteen, who blushes, looking very pretty in her large coif.

"This is Anne," says Yves to me, "my sister-in-law, the godmother."

There is still some distance between the little town and the cottage in which they live at Trémeulé in Toulven.

Some village lads lift my luggage on their shoulders, and I set out to make my visit to the sea-gull which has just been born; to make the acquaintance also of this Breton family, into which Yves has entered in his headlong way without very clearly knowing why.

What will they be like, these new relations of my brother Yves--and this new country which is to become his?