curious old brass bowls one sees everywhere here.  Some of them are very handsome, polished until they shine like mirrors, with a delicate pattern lightly traced running around the bowl.  They balance them perfectly on their heads and walk along at a good swinging pace.  They all look prosperous, their skirts (generally black), shoes, and stockings in good condition, and their white caps and handkerchiefs as clean as possible.  Quineville is a very quiet little place, no hotel, and rows of ugly little houses well back from the sea, but there is a beautiful stretch of firm white sand.  To-day it was dead low tide.  The sea looked miles away, a long line of dark sea-weed marking the water’s edge.  There were plenty of people about; women and girls with stout bare legs, and a primitive sort of tool, half pitchfork, half shovel, were piling the sea-weed into the carts which were waiting on the shore.  Children were paddling about in the numerous little pools and making themselves wreaths and necklaces out of the berries of the sea-weed—­some of them quite bright-coloured, pink and yellow.  We wandered about on the beach, sitting sometimes on the side of a boat, and walking through the little pools and streams.  It was a lonely bit of water.  We didn’t see a sail.  The sea looked like a great blue plain meeting the sky—­nothing to break the monotony.  We got some very bad coffee at the restaurant—­didn’t attempt tea.  They would certainly have said they had it, and would have made it probably out of hay from the barn.  The drive home was delicious, almost too cool, as we went at a good pace, the horses knowing as well as we did that the end of their day was coming....  We have been again to market this morning.  It was much more amusing than the first time, as it was horse day, and men and beasts were congregated in the middle of the Cathedral Square.  There was a fair show—­splendid big carthorses and good cobs and ponies—­here and there a nice saddle-horse.  There were a good many women driving themselves, and almost all had good, stout little horses.  They know just as much about it as the men and were much interested in the sales.  They told me the landlady of the hotel was the best judge of a horse and a man in Normandy.  She was standing at the entrance of her court-yard as we passed the hotel on our way home, a comely, buxom figure, dressed like all the rest in a short black skirt and sabots.  She was exchanging smiling greetings and jokes with every one who passed and keeping order with the crowds of farmers, drivers, and horse-dealers who were jostling through the big open doors and clamoring for food for themselves and their animals.  She was the type of the hard-working, capable Frenchwoman of whom there are thousands in France.