We dined at the _Philippe_ of the place, which was called Jacomety; our table d'hôte dinner cost us fifty sous--only between ten to twenty sous difference between other table-d'hôte tariffs all over the kingdom. At this meal, near me, a young, sad-looking woman was dining; or, rather, was not dining, for she ate nothing. Her husband, on her right hand, was attending to her with the solicitude of a lover, and yet, every few minutes, the breast of the lovely one in distress would heave with sobs, tears would come to her eyelids and, in spite of her efforts to restrain them, they rolled down her cheeks. I could not refrain from listening to the conversation of my two neighbours; I soon learnt that the young man was a native of Guadeloupe, and had just married this charming young woman from the neighbourhood of Tours, whom he was transplanting from the garden of France to that of the Antilles. The poor child, apart from the confidence which she had just placed in that blind side of life which we call the future, knew nothing of the country to which she was going, and, until she could have children who would suck her milk and dry her tears, she mourned for the friends and relatives she was leaving behind in the old land of Europe and, probably, for the old continent itself too. At the same table was dining the captain of the vessel which was to take the young married pair over seas; and it was from him that I learnt most of these details. They were to set sail the next day. I asked his leave to go on board and to stay till his ship sailed, which he readily granted me. The boat was at anchor between Paimbœuf and Saint-Nazaire, and was called _la Pauline._ She was a pretty three-masted trader with very graceful lines, and of five or six hundred tons. I did not say anything of my plan to my two neighbours, certain that, indifferent to them as I was, the next day at the moment of leaving I should become even more to them than a fellow-countryman--namely, a friend! I spent the rest of that day by the river banks shooting at ordinary gulls and blackheaded gulls, amazed that they did not fall. A native sportsman, amused at my disappointment, whom I approached to question as to whether the Loire, like the Styx, had the property of rendering invulnerable the men and animals which bathed in its waters, informed me, to my great surprise, that, for want of the knowledge of measuring maritime distances, I was firing from double the ordinary length of range. He laid down the following rules as essential:-- Never fire at a sea-bird unless you can distinctly see its eye; when you see its eye, its body is within range of your lead. I instantly applied this maxim to practice. I waited patiently; I let a gull come near enough for me to see its eye distinctly like a little black speck, then I fired, and; the bird fell. The purveyor of these counsels bowed and continued his shooting, pleased with himself for having taught something to a Parisian.