The best of our adventures into this tender country were with the
French bridal tourists; they were certain to be delightfully human. As
we had had occasion to remark before, they were off, like ourselves,
on a little voyage of discovery; they had come to make acquaintance
with the being to whom they were mated for life. Various degrees of
progress could be read in the air and manner of the hearty young
"bourgeoises" and their paler or even ruddier partners, as they
crunched their bread or sipped their thin wine. Some had only entered
as yet upon the path of inquiry; others had already passed the
mile-stone of criticism; and still others had left the earth and were
floating in full azure of intoxication. Of the many wedding parties
that sat down to breakfast, we soon made the commonplace discovery
that the more plebeian the company, the more certain-orbed appeared to
be the promise of happiness....

Madame Poulard's air with this, her world, was as full of tact as with
the tourists. Many of the older women would give her the Norman kiss,
solemnly, as if the salute were a part of the ceremony attendant on
the eating of a wedding breakfast at Mont St. Michel. There would be
a three times' clapping of the wrinkled or the ruddy peasant cheeks
against the sides of Madame Poulard's daintier, more delicately
modeled face. Then all would take their seats noisily at the table. It
was Madame Poulard who would then bring us news of the party. At the
end of a fortnight Charm and I felt ourselves to be in possession of
the hidden and secret reasons for all the marrying that had been done
along the coast that year....

One morning, as we looked toward Pontorson, a small black cloud
appeared to be advancing across the bay. The day was windy; the sky