“You see, Mademoiselle Gaud, it’s like this:  every man wants two new suits.”

They explained to her how they set to work to make them, and to render their seams waterproof with tar, for they were for wet weather wear.  And while they worked, Gaud looked attentively around the home of these Gaoses.

It was furnished after the traditional manner of all Breton cottages; an immense chimney-place took up one whole end, and on the sides of the walls the Breton beds, bunks, as on shipboard, were placed one above another.  But it was not so sombre and sad as the cabins of other peasants, which are generally half-hidden by the wayside; it was all fresh and clean, as the homes of seamen usually are.  Several little Gaoses were there, girls and boys, all sisters and brothers of Yann; without counting two big ones, who were already out at sea.  And, besides, there was a little fair girl, neat, but sad, unlike the others.

“We adopted her last year,” explained the mother; “we had enough children as it was, of course, but what else could we do, Mademoiselle Gaud, for her daddy belonged to the Maria-Dieu-t’aime, lost last season off Iceland, as you know; so the neighbours divided the little ones between them, and this one fell to our lot.”

Hearing herself spoken of, the adopted child hung her pretty head and smiled, hiding herself behind little Laumec Gaos, her favourite.

There was a look of comfort all over the place, and radiant health bloomed on all the children’s rosy cheeks.

They received Gaud very profusely, like a great lady whose visit was an honour to the family.  She was taken upstairs, up a newly-built wooden staircase, to see the room above, which was the glory of the home.  She remembered the history of its construction; it was after the finding of a derelict vessel in the channel, which luck had befallen Yann’s father and his cousin the pilot.

The room was very gay and pretty in its whiteness; there were two town beds in it, with pink chintz curtains, and a large table in the middle.  Through the window the whole of Paimpol could be seen, with the Icelanders at anchor off shore, and the channel through which they passed.

She did not dare question, but she would have liked to have known where Yann slept; probably as a child he had slept downstairs in one of the antique cupboard-beds.  But perhaps now he slept under those pink draperies.  She would have loved to have known all the details of his life, especially what he did in the long winter evenings.

A heavy footstep on the stairs made her tremble.  But it was not Yann, though a man much like him; notwithstanding his white hair, as tall and as straight.  It was old father Gaos returning from fishing.

After he had saluted her and asked her the object of her visit, he signed her receipt for her which was rather a long operation, as his hand was not very steady, he explained.