After dinner we went out and sat together upon the bank of the noisy river; we sat in a meadow overgrown with centauries and sweet marjoram, recognizable in the darkness because of their penetrating odor. It was a very still, warm evening and innumerable crickets chirped in the grass. It seemed to me that I had never before seen so many stars in the heavens. The difference in latitude was not so great, but the sea air that tempers our winters also makes our summer evenings hazy; in consequence we could see more stars here in this southern country with its clear atmosphere, than at our home. The majestic mountains surrounding us, from which I could not take my eyes, looked like great blue silhouettes: the mountains, never seen until now, gave me the feeling, so much longed for, of being in a distant country, they gave me the assurance that one of the dreams of my childhood had come true. I spent several summers in this village, and I made myself enough at home to learn the southern dialect spoken by the people there. Indeed the two provinces I became best acquainted with in my childhood was this southern one and that of St. Ongeoise, both of them lands of sunshine. Brittany, which so many take to be my native place, I did not see until a later time, not until I was seventeen, and I did not learn to love it until long after that,--doubtless that is why I loved it so ardently. At first it oppressed me and induced a feeling of extreme sadness; my brother Ives initiated me into its charm, a charm tinged with melancholy, and it was he who persuaded me to explore its thatched cottages and wooden chapels. And following this, the influence that a young girl of Treguier exercised over my imagination, when I was about twenty-seven, strengthened my love for Brittany, the land of my adoption. CHAPTER XLIII. The day after my arrival at my uncle's I met some children named Peyrals who became my playmates. According to the fashion of that part of the country their baptismal names were spoken preceded by the definite article. The two little girls respectively ten and twelve years old were called “the Marciette” and “the Titi,” and their younger brother, still a little chap, who did not, therefore, figure so largely in our plays, was called “the Medon.” As I was younger in my ways than most boys of twelve,--in spite of my understanding of some things usually beyond the comprehension of children,--we immediately became a congenial little band, and for several summers we came together and enjoyed each other's companionship. The father of the little Peyrals owned all the forests and vineyards upon the hillsides about us. We had the freedom of them, were absolutely our own masters, and no one controlled or restrained us in any way, no matter how absurd we were.