For it does not require days or
weeks or months to know some people; moments will place you in intimate
communion with them. You meet and suddenly feel that you must have known
each other in some previous existence, so mutual is the recognition. But
it is not so, for we have had no previous existence. It is nothing but
the freemasonry of the spirit; soul going out to soul. For this reason
the "love at first sight" that the poets have raved about in all the
ages, and in all the ages mankind has laughed at, is probably as real as
anything we know of; as real as our existence, the air we breathe, the
heaven above us.
But we were at Lesneven, in the midst of the little crowd of two--we
must not keep it waiting. And although the day is still young, yet the
golden moments will fly, and the sun sinks rapidly westward.
So we inquired our way and were politely directed, and the little child
declared it would be her pleasure to accompany us: "_il etoit si facile
de s'egarer_," she declared, in very grown-up tones, and in her peculiar
patois. _Il etoit_. We had not heard the old-fashioned expression since
our childhood, in the villages of our native land.
We accepted the escort, and the little maiden chatted as freely as if we
had been very old acquaintances. "She supposed that, like all strangers,
we had been to see le Folgoet? It was a fine church, but its miraculous
fountain was the best of all. Once, when she hurt her foot, grandpere
carried her across the fields to the fountain.
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