Some of these signallers stood absorbed in the importance of the work in hand, (or rather stick in hand), but others had an eye to the main chance of their own households, which was being enacted in the cottage behind them, whether it concerned culinary arrangements or the goings-on of the children, and while she wielded the _batôn_ in the service of her country, she minded (as we have been so often assured is woman's distinctive, though somewhat narrowed, province!) things of low estate--such as her saucepan, her _pot-au-feu_, her baby. In the far corner of our carriage, in black beaver, cassock and heavy cloak, with parchment-like countenance, much-lined brow, and controlled mouth, sat a young _curé_. He was engaged in saying a prolonged "Office," but this did not hinder him from taking occasionally, "for his stomach's sake, and his other infirmities," a little snuff from time to time. We were bound for Paris, _en route_ for Arcachon. The train, as it went along, disturbed crowds of finches, and amongst them here and there a large sort of bird with black head and wings and white back, which I could not identify, though it seemed to belong to the crow tribe, to judge by the shape of its body and manner of its flight. From time to time we passed little sheltered villages: quiet, grey-roofed, sentinelled by the inevitable poplar, and traversed by a little softly-shining stream. The meadows were full of soft, feathery-plumaged trees, of all shades of delicate tints; from the yellow tint of the evening primrose to the pink of the campion, and the shade of a robin's breast. An old countrywoman in a full satiny skirt, carrying a long pole over her shoulder, was striding energetically across a field as we passed. How one country gives the lie to another which holds as a dictum--immutable, irreversible--that outdoor labour is not possible for women! All over France men and women share equally the toil of the fields, and no one can say that it has not developed a strong, healthy type of woman, nor that the work is not effectively done. In some places I even saw women at work on the railway lines. A few miles farther on we came upon an orchard of leafless fruit-trees sprawling across a soft green slope; behind them, a little forest of pine trees, their bare trunks _chassez-croisezing_ against a pale saffron sky as we whirled by. Gnarled willows, with a diaphanous purple haze upon their bare boughs, came into sight, a goat quietly grazing at their roots; little meandering streams pottering quietly along between willow trees; here and there splendid old slated-roofed farm-houses, some with climbing trees trained up the front in regular, parallel lines.