of the bed; we were so near the sea that the tide was beginning to wash
us back, along with the fringe of the diggers.

"They're not--they only look old," replied Renard, stopping a moment to
sketch in a group directly in front. "This life makes old women of them
in no time. How old, for instance, should you think that girl was, over
there?"

The girl whom he designated was the only figure of youth we had seen on
the bed. She was working alone and remote from the others. She wore no
coif. Her masses of red, wavy hair shaded a face already deeply seamed
with lines of premature age. A moment later she passed close to us. She
was bent almost double beneath a huge, reeking basket, heaped with its
pile of wet mussels. She was carrying it to a distant pool. Once beside
the pool, with swift, dexterous movement the heavy basket was slipped
from the bent back, the load of mussels falling in a shower into the
miniature lake. The next instant she was stamping on the heap, to
plunge them with her sabot still further into the pool. She was washing
her load. Soon she shouldered the basket again, filling it with the
cleansed mussels. A moment later she joined the long, toiling line of
women that were perpetually forming and reforming on their way to the
carts. These latter were drawn up near the beach, their contents
guarded by boys and old men, who received the loads the women had dug,
dragging the whole, later, up the hill.

"She has the Venus de Milo lines, that girl," Renard continued,
critically, with his eyes on her, as she now repassed us. The figure
was drawn up at its full height. It had in truth a noble dignity of
outline. There was a Spartan vigor and severity in the lean, uncorseted
shape, with the bust thrown out against the sky--the bust of a young