driven from their island, they took refuge in Wales and Brittany. When
William the Norman conquered that island again, his force was chiefly
composed of the descendants of those very Britons; for so feeble was the
genuine Norse element that it had been long since absorbed, and in the
language of the Norman--used until a late day upon certain records in
England--there is not one single word of Scandinavian origin. Thus it
was neither French nor Norman nor Scandinavian invading the white
cliffs, but the exiled Briton reconquering his native land; and, to make
the fact still stronger, the army of Richmond, Henry VII., was entirely
recruited in Brittany. Perhaps, then, the reason that Brittany is to
many a region of romance and delight is a feeling akin to the pleasure
we take in visiting some ancestral domain from whose soil our fathers
once drew their being.

The Breton novel of Mr. Reade, "White Lies," although somewhat crude,
otherwise ranks with his best. The action is uninterrupted and swift,
the characters sharply defined, if legendary, the dialogue always
sparkling, the plot cleanly executed, the whole full of humor and
seasoned with wit. So well has it caught the spirit of the scene that it
reads like a translation, and, lest we should mistake the _locale_,
everybody in the book lies abominably from beginning to end.

"'A lie is a lump of sin and a piece of folly,' cries Jacintha.

"Edouard notes it down, and then says, in allusion to a previous
remark of hers,--

"'I did not think you were five-and-twenty, though.'

"'I am, then,--don't you believe me?'