She carries always a baby by her breast; her bare forearms are as bulky as any man’s; in her eyes is a froward scowl; and, when she laughs, it is with a harsh, strident gaiety. But she never fails to wear her squalid portliness with a robust and defiant dignity, that makes her figure definitely symbolic of Cockney maternity. [Sidenote: ON THE COAST OF CALVADOS Sept. 26] The leaden sea plashed her indolent rhythm: all along the lonely shore the orchards stood motionless, sombre, metallic-looking in the lifeless, thunder-charged air; and amid a rugged flare of smoky flame, the sun went down in the West. A baby breeze rustled past, fleeing before the distant storm: then, all grew still again, while, across the horizon, a quiet rift broke, revealing a long, lurid line of fantastic coast—mysterious, desolate valleys, and ragged towering cliffs. The leaden sea plashed her indolent rhythm; and the bleak bulk of a steamer, pitching in the offing, moved like a beast in distress. And once again, fresh and cool, carrying the scent of the storm, the breeze came fleeing, trailing an inky stain over the sea; and across the West there defiled a vague squadron of gigantic pillars of rain. The parched trees swayed their boughs, uneasily whispering; and, of a sudden, wrapping all things in a dense shroud of dark-grey mist, clattered the ponderous rain. And overhead, on, through the growing night, the white, jagged flashes of lightning, and the frenzied flight of the screaming wind, and the dull booming of thunder told of the great, distant battle of the clouds. [Sidenote: IN NORMANDY Sept. 30] A mauve sky, all subtle; a discreet rusticity, daintily modern, femininely delicate; a whole finikin arrangement of trim trees, of rectangular orchards, of tiny, spruce houses, tall-roofed and pink-faced, with white shutters demurely closed. Here and there a prim farmyard; a squat church-spire; and bloused peasants jogging behind rotund white horses, along a straight and gleaming road. In all the landscape no trace of the slovenly profusion of the picturesque; but rather a distinguished reticence of detail, fresh, coquettish, almost dapper. [Sidenote: PARIS IN OCTOBER October 4] Paris in October—all white and a-glitter under a cold, sparkling sky, and the trees of the boulevards trembling their frail, russet leaves; garish, petulant Paris; complacently content with her sauntering crowds, her monotonous arrangements in pink and white and blue; ever busied with her own publicity, her tiresome, obvious vice, and her parochial modernity coquetting with cosmopolitanism.... [Sidenote: LA CÔTE D’OR FROM THE TRAIN October 6] Strips of ruddy earth: poplars flecked with gold, and vineyards with autumn red; the dark, sleek Saône; and beyond, the pale green plain, spacious and smooth, stretching away and away towards the blue haze that wraps the Côte d’Or, hesitating and soft as the lines of a woman’s body.