.

THE WINDMILL.
There was between Nantes and Rennes an established service of three stage-coaches weekly in each direction, which for a sum of twenty-four livres--roughly, the equivalent of an English guinea--would carry you the seventy and odd miles of the journey in some fourteen hours.

Once a week one of the diligences going in each direction would swerve aside from the highroad to call at Gavrillac, to bring and take letters, newspapers, and sometimes passengers.

It was usually by this coach that Andre-Louis came and went when the occasion offered.

At present, however, he was too much in haste to lose a day awaiting the passing of that diligence.