Guests at Ker-Guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages to stay a month or more, and open house was kept. Breakfast was at six for those who did not take communion at the mass that was celebrated every morning in the chapel adjoining the château; these breakfasted on returning. It was permissible for ladies, at this early hour, to appear very informally in _peignoirs_ and _bigoudics_. _Bigoudics_ are curl-papers or ribbons. The marquis almost always took communion, but he usually appeared at the six o'clock breakfast. After mass, once his correspondence dealt with, he played billiards with Rosine, the beautiful girl who became a nun in the order of the Carmelites, an order so strict that those who entered it died, to all intents and purposes, since their relatives never saw them again, and at that time were not even informed of their death. I see Rosine very clearly, bending over the billiard-table under her father's fond gaze, and I can also see her kneeling to pray in a corner of the _petit salon_. It was with such simplicity that any suspicion of affectation or parade was out of the question. In the midst of a conversation she would gently ask to be excused and would go there apart and pray, sometimes for an hour. The ladies quietly gossiping over their embroidery-frames took it quite as a matter of course that Rosine should be praying near them. [Illustration: "Guests at Ker-Guélegaan arrived with their own horses and carriages"] _Déjeuner_ was at ten, and it was then that one saw how strongly feudal customs still survived at Ker-Guélegaan. The marquis sat at the head of the table, and behind his chair stood his old servant Yvon, dressed in Breton mourning-costume in memory of his defunct mistress; that is to say, in blue, black, and yellow. The other servants wore the livery of the house. Half-way down the table the white cloth ended, and the lower half had a matting covering. Here sat all the farmers of Ker-Guélegaan and their families, taking their midday meal with their master, while M. de Ploeuc and his guests and family sat above. We children were usually placed at a little side-table. The meal aways began by M. de Ploeuc rising and blessing the company with two outstretched fingers, like a bishop, and he then recited a benediction. He was always served first, another survival of patriarchal custom, forced upon him, rather, for I remember his protesting against it and wishing my mother, who sat next him, to be served before him; but she would not hear of it. During the repasts a violinist and a _biniou_-player, dressed in his Breton costume, played to us.