no, the quicker the heart feels the quicker love comes. _Tiens,
voyons, mon amie, toi-meme, tu m'as confie_"--and the rest was lost in
the bride's ear.

Apparently we were to have them, these brides, for the rest of our
journey, in all stages and of all ages! Thus far none others had
appeared as determined as were these two honey-mooners, that all the
world should share their bliss. They were cracking filberts with their
disengaged fingers, the other two being closely interlocked, in quite
scandalous openness, when we left them.

That was the only form of excitement that greeted us in the quiet
Bayeux streets. The very street urchins invited repose; the few we saw
were seated sedately on the threshold of their own door-steps, frequent
sallies abroad into this quiet city having doubtless convinced them of
the futility of all sorties. The old houses were their carved facades
as old ladies wear rich lace--they had reached the age when the vanity
of personal adornment had ceased to inflate. The great cathedral,
towering above the tranquil town, wore a more conscious air; its
significance was too great a contrast to the quiet city asleep at its
feet. In these long, slow centuries the towers had grown to have the
air of protectors.

The famous tapestries we went to see later, might easily enough have
been worked yesterday, in any one of the old mediaeval houses; Mathilde
and her hand-maidens would find no more--not so much--to distract and
disturb them now in this still and tranquil town, with its sad gray
streets and its moss-grown door-steps, as they must in those earlier
bustling centuries of the Conqueror. Even then, when Normandy was only
beginning its career of importance among the great French provinces,