“Hey! So you’re not going with us to Paimpol, Mademoiselle Yvonne?�
Mademoiselle Yvonne ceased flogging her table, and turned her face toward the questioner. It was a full, straight-featured, rather massive face, framed in the shell-fluted cap worn by unmarried women. The brows were broad, and from under the straight eyebrows looked a pair of eyes that were blue and clear and candid as those of the little boy who clung to the skirts of the woman who addressed her. As she drew herself up, resting on her birch-broom, it might be seen that she was tall and deep-chested and broad-bosomed, and that the massive plaits of hair coiled upon her temples were gray.
“Going to Paimpol! Sure, it is impossible,� said Mademoiselle Yvonne. “There is so much to do getting the house ready.� A rich deep color flushed her cheeks, staining her temples and tinting her full throat to the edge of her bodice. “When one is to be married, Madame understands——�
“So then! You have heard?� cried the neighbor with an elaborate pantomime of delight at the good news. “You have had a letter from Iceland at last?�
The clear blue eyes looked troubled for a moment.
“No. Not that,� said Mademoiselle Yvonne. “Not precisely a letter, but I have made out why the Marie au Secours delays so long. You see, they must have had a great catch at the cod-fisheries, and, being a man of brains, my Yann set out to make the most of his good luck. So the Marie au Secours will have merely touched at Paimpol, and then sailed down to the Gulf of Gascony, where fish fetch high prices, or even to the Sandy Isles.� One of her massive plaits, released by her vigorous movements from the confining pin, uncoiled and fell below her waist. “That is how it will have been, Madame Pilot!� exclaimed Yvonne, smiling and coiling up the beautiful hair.
“Without doubt, that is how it will have been!� assented the other.
She drove her stout elbow into the ribs of the woman who had whispered to her. “Not so loud! We people of the coast have sharper ears than you folks from inland.�
“When did he sail?�
“Twenty years ago, when she was eighteen, and all that gray hair gold.�