RANDOM MEMORIES 85 



muttered by the Ankou as he drives his 

 death cart down the Chemin Creux. But 

 should the wind grow higher, wakening 

 the children, making them climb from 

 their warm beds to stand, bare-footed, 

 round-eyed, in the firehght, then would 

 Jean Pierre cut short his eloquence, hold 

 out his arms and smile. On dit fa, mais 

 ... a shrug, the little ones are drawn to 

 his knees and comforted. Yet must not 

 Mariic sit upon that little stool within the 

 chimney-place, that little stool which 

 still stands vacant by many a peasant 

 hearth in unknown Brittany, a sort of 

 sanctuary for the penates, sacred to the 

 ancestral dead. " Ah, no !" Jean Pierre 

 insists, " to nudge your betters off the 

 edge to sit among the embers, and you a 

 great fat girl, too 1 You see it would be 

 uncomfortable for them. Youv gi-and'tante 

 suffered from excessive corpulence, and 

 always needed space." 



Then memory pictures Mariic snuggled 

 at my old friend's feet, toasting her toes 

 before the fire, eyeing him quizzically as 

 children will, searching his impenetrable 

 face, his set mouth, where crinkling 



