The following summer we went back to Trouville, and of course she came to be with us. After that we never saw her again. But every Yuletide there came a letter to my aunt, written by the village scribe in pompous language, beginning, “Je croirais manquer à mon devoir si je ne m’empressais pas,” etc., etc., with many good wishes and felicitations. At last, after many years, there was a sad Christmas which brought no letter. Poor Marie “avait manqué à son devoir.” She was dead. * * * * * Of Trouville Alexandre Dumas père was the Columbus, la Mère Oseraie the George Washington. What the one discovered, the other made. The “Bras d’Or,” the solitary little inn over which Madame Oseraie shed the very sunshine of kindness, became famous as a summer resort for the long-haired denizens of the Quartier Latin of Paris. It was quite humble and very cheap, but it was specklessly clean, and the cooking was undeniable, for the hostess was a born _cordon bleu_. The elder Dumas was no mean judge, and when he gave her his blessing, her omelettes were said to be a dream, her _soupe aux choux_ a revelation. The great man had spoken, and the “Bras d’Or” became a sort of suffragan headquarters for some of the painters of the Barbizon school, and a small gang of imitative _rapins_ who followed in their wake. It suited their meagre purses; for three or four francs a day they were lodged and fed upon the fat of the land, with bread and cider _à discrétion_. As for Madame Oseraie herself, round, fat, and fubsy, with a most genial smile and welcome, she looked as if she had been made to suckle the world on the milk of human kindness. The good inn was never empty, and the guests went back to Paris all the better for the rest, with a dip in the sea, fresh, strong air and good food, carrying a satchel full of sketches to work upon in their cock-loft _ateliers_ till the time should come round for another happy summer holiday. But after 1842 no more “Bras d’Or” for the poor _rapins_! The grandees from Paris had taken possession of Trouville; Madame Oseraie not unreasonably raised her prices, and the poor, long-haired, imperfectly-washed, but very merry ne’er-do-weels must move on to some other and, let us hope, equally happy hunting ground. When the great people came they had perforce to accept the simple life. The fisher folk furbished up their cottages according to their humble ideas of æsthetic extravagance, and their lodgers, who had left behind them rooms rich with Gobelins and Beauvais tapestry, furnished with masterpieces by Riesener, Caffieri and Gouthières, had to content themselves with hideous cheap wall-papers the colour of which came off in dust upon their coats and gowns, and with such poor sticks and stocks as the modest homes could afford. What became of the owners, in what troglodytes’ dwellings they lay hidden, counting over their little harvest, is more than any man can say.