Across the way from our house in Landerneau lived two old maiden ladies, the Demoiselles de Coatnamprun. The Marquis and Marquise de Coatnamprun, their father and mother, had died many years ago, and most of the small fortune had been filched from them in some iniquitous lawsuit. I remember them very clearly, for I often went to see them with _maman_ and Tante Rose, who watched over them and protected them; gentle, austere figures, dressed always in threadbare black, almost like nuns, with long, white bone rosaries hanging at their sides, and on their breasts, tied with a red cord, great crucifixes of brass and wood. Around their necks they wore white handkerchiefs folded, the points behind, and when they went out, old-fashioned black _capotes_, which were large bonnets mounted and drawn on wires, a quilling of white inside around the face. The elder was called Isménie, and the younger Suzette; they had the tenderest love for each other. Their house was one of the oldest in Landerneau and was covered with strange carvings. The great knocker always fascinated me, for it represented a devil with his pitchfork, and one lifted the pitchfork to knock. Almost always it was one of the Demoiselles de Coatnamprun who answered, and she always held a clean white handkerchief by the center, the points shaken out, and always swept us, as she appeared before us in the doorway, a wonderful, old-fashioned, stately court curtsey. The sisters were plain, with dark, mild eyes, faded skins, and pale, withered lips; but their teeth were beautiful, and they had abundant hair. Isménie's features were harsh, and her half-closed, near-sighted eyes gave her a cold and haughty expression; but in reality she was a lamb of gentleness, and no one seeing the sisters in their poverty would have taken them for anything but _grandes dames_. [Illustration: "Gentle, austere figures, dressed always in threadbare black"]