living. Just behind them, doubtless, was the
young couple, bashfully following. The parents
were going about, buying the presents; here a
silk dress, there a fine lace coif, yonder some
article of menage, or jewellery, or farmers' tools
or stock. Tis a holiday for all the young
people of the village. Some of them have been
having a dance, with music, on the lawn;
others, the more well-to-do, have been escorting
Jacques and Nannine to the putissicre and
cabaret, where the happy couple have been
treated to wines, fruits, and cakes; others have
been following the parents from shop to shop,
and bearing home the presents as they were
purchased."

Mine host and I, our repast over, repaired to
the little bench under the gable of the inn, and
lighted our pipes. We had not sat there long,
when the peasant whom I had noticed leading
the procession the father of Jacques came
up, followed by a merry troop of young
villagers.

"He's coming to invite me to the wedding,"
whispered the landlord. Which he did. Then,
turning to me with a profound salutation,
Jacques's father remarked that he perceived I
was a stranger, and hoped I would likewise
honour him with my presence, not only to the
ceremony, but to the succeeding festivities. I
at once accepted the invitation.

"I beg Monsieur's pardon," said mine host,
as I was about to ascend, candle in hand, to my
chamber, "but if Monsieur would wish to see
the marriage, he must rise very early. The
cure will be at the altar by seven. I pray
Monsieur to forgive my not giving him the best
room. But it is a custom that the bridegroom
should hire the best room of the inn the night
before the wedding, for the musicians, who
come from the city, twenty leagues away."

At six on the fresh October morning, I was
dressed and at my simple breakfast of bread,
fruit, and wine; and at ten minutes before
seven I repaired with mine host and hostess to
the village church. The slate-coloured dawn
was just mellowing into day as we issued into
the zig-zag street, and the little population were
already astir, hastening in chattering groups
towards the scene of the ceremony. They
were crowding in at the door of the oddest
little, one-sided, worn, and musty church you
ever looked on: with ancient frescoes half
obliterated, faded altar cloths, and feeble-looking
candlesticks; at the upper end were two
flickering tapers, their rays intercepted by
the squat thick-set form (clothed in sacred
attire) of the village cure; just below him was
the village beadle, with enormous gaudy
chapeau, shivering with cold; the cure holding
in his sleek fat hands a well-worn book; the
beadle, clutching his staff of authority.

Jacques and Nannine, clad in the newest and
best apparel the village could afford, reverently
approach the altar and kneel; their parents
come after, aad stand demurely behind. The
rustic population is very quiet and attentive,
and evidently impressed by the holy place.
Then follows the stately Romish marriage
ceremony, needless to describe. No sooner
have the last intonation and the blessing
passed the priest's lips than the auditory begin
to chatter and laugh, to hurry up to bride
and bridegroom and to shower honest and
hearty kisses on them—in which the cure",
by the by, is not slow to join. This over,
the married pair and their especial friends
follow the good pastor into the sacristy behind
the altar. As a stranger, I am politely bidden
to come too. Here, are spread some cold meat,
bread, and wine, of which all, Nannine
included, partake with lusty zest, and there is
many a joke and there is much rallying, in
which the priest is merriest of all.

The village folk have meanwhile been busy
on the lawn outside. The grass has been rolled
flat, and tables have been placed, and tents
erected; the musicians have arrived, well
mellowed with wine, and scratching on their
fiddles in their impatience to begin. The
wedding party, on emerging from the church, is
greeted by a queer shrill yell, not unlike an
Indian whoop the Breton cheer; forthwith
the musicians mount the table, take their places
on round stools, and strike up. The bride and
bridegroom proceed to mount a horse: she
seated behind him, and clinging to his waist as
prettily as possible: and they gallop around the
green, to the great amusement and applause of
the spectators, some half-a-dozen times. This
traditional custom complied with, the marriage
dances begin. Jacques and Nannine are at
the head of the first set, opposite the parents;
at the sides are the best friends. It is by no
means easy to describe this rustic wedding
dance. They leap and bound, entering into
the sport as vigorously as they do into their
daily work. They swing their arms about in
ecstatic fury; the hair escapes from beneath
hats and coifs, perspiration covers their fore-
heads, and their heavy wooden shoes thump
and thump on the flattened grass. It was a
very ancient dance, mine host told me, handed
down from none knew how remote. 'Tis said
that this, as well as the other rustic Breton
dances, had a religious origin, far back in
Druidic ages. The wedding dance is called the
"gavotte"; its noticeable feature is, that the
most expert dancer leads the rest off into
numberless turnings and counterturnings, then
abruptly stops and sets them all a-jigging, then
rushes off with a sort of "walk round," then
resumes his spiral course with a hop and a skip,
the rest imitating his every movement with
surprising quickness; the whole apparently, not
really, performed at the leader's caprice. The
dance is made yet more striking by a continual
shouting and laughing, an enraptured throwing
up of hands, and individual eccentricities and
diversions. It is so exhausting that after a
little, even the sturdy sons and daughters of the
soil are fain to give up; and for awhile they
leave the dancing ring to refresh themselves
and rest.

Long rude tables have been set along the
boundaries of the green, and now fairly groan
with a bounteous provision of good things