of health, was overtaken by an illness which slowly undermined her
strength.

My mother was in every respect, whether as regarded her ideas or her
associations, one of the old school. She spoke Breton perfectly,
and had at her fingers' ends all the sailors' proverbs and a host of
things which no one now remembers. She was a true woman of the people,
and her natural wit imparted a wonderful amount of life to the long
stories which she told and which few but herself knew. Her sufferings
did not in any way affect her spirits, and she was quite cheerful the
afternoon of her death. Of an evening I used to sit with her for an
hour in her room, with no other light--for she was very fond of this
semi-obscurity--than that of the gas-lamp in the street. Her lively
imagination would then assume free scope, and, as so often happens
with old people, the recollections of her early days came back with
special force and clearness. She could remember what Tréguier and
Lannion were before the Revolution, and she would describe what the
different houses were like, and who lived in them. I encouraged her
by questions to wander on, as it amused her and kept her thoughts away
from her illness.

Upon one occasion we began to talk of the hospital, and she gave me
the complete history of it. "Many changes," to use her own words,
"have occurred there since I first knew it. No one need ever feel any
shame at having been an inmate of it, for the most highly respected
persons have resided there. During the First Empire, and before the
indemnities were paid, it served as an asylum for the poor daughters
of the nobles, who might be seen sitting out at the entrance upon cane
chairs. Not a complaint ever escaped their lips, but when they saw the
persons who had acquired possession of their family property rolling