morning by Albertine piping chansons as she dusted the stair. Appetizing odors drew us often to the dining-room where through an open door we could see the genie of the kitchen peering into kettles, sniffing under lids, mincing with fastidious, pottering hands herbs into a sputtering pan. At the table, we shared the concoctions of Madame, likewise tinned delicacies from France, good wine and puffy gateaux, with a monsieur lately arrived from Paris to install a new plant for the mogul called Thélot who dictates to St. Pierre how many watts it may have for its centimes. So potent is the name of this luminary that in his orbit it is synonymous with the light itself. "Où est Thélot?" mothers ask to invite their babes' reply, "Là est Thélot!" at the turning of the switch. If the evening current is belated, householders sigh in the dusk, "Thélot is late tonight," or if the light is poor, "Thélot is dim."
The broad world, its habits and terms mean little to St. Pierre. Many born on the island have never left it for so much as a day's excursion to Big or Little Miquelon. Their universe is this pinnacled isle bounded by the Atlantic.
A short way down a shabby street from our pension was the square about which the social and religious life of the village rotates, even as the quay is the hub of local commerce. Near-by is Government House. Facing the place is the café of the high world. But the most significant struc-
