The name of an attorney had at first frightened the good Bearnois of that town; but they soon discovered that Maître Jean Baptiste Arnault was a very clever, quiet, amiable, little man, about two cubits in height, of which stature his head monopolised at least the moiety. He was not particularly handsome; but, as he appeared to have other better qualities, that did not much signify, and they gradually made him their friend, their confidant, and their adviser; in all of which capacities, he acted in a mild, tranquil, easy little manner, that seemed quite delightful: but, notwithstanding all this, the people of the town of Lourdes began insensibly to get of a quarrelsome and a litigious turn, so that Jean Baptiste Arnault had his study in general pretty full of clients; and, though he made it appear clearly to the most common understanding, that his sole object was to promote peace and good-will, yet, strange to say, discord, the faithful jackal of all attorneys, was a very constant attendant on his steps. Such were the reports that had reached us at the Château de l'Orme; and the _maître d'hôtel_, when he repeated them, laid his finger upon the side of his prominent and rubicund proboscis, and screwed up his eye till it nearly suffered an eclipse, saying as plainly as nose and eye could say, "Monsieur Jean Baptiste Arnault is a cunning fellow." However, my father had no will to believe ill of any one, and my mother as little; so that, when we set out for Lourdes, both were fully convinced that the parent of their child's deliverer was one of the most excellent of men. After visiting the church, and offering at the shrine of _Notre Dame du bon secours_, we proceeded to the dwelling of the procureur, and dismounting from our horses, entered the _étude_, or office, of the lawyer; the boy, who had come to show us the way, throwing open the door with a consequential fling, calculated to impress the mind of the attorney with the honour which we did him. It was a miserable chamber, with a low table, and a few chairs, both strewed with some books of law, and written papers, greased and browned by the continual thumbing of the coarse-handed peasants, in whose concerns they were written. Jean Baptiste Arnault was not there, but in his place appeared a person, plainly dressed in a suit of black, with buttons of jet, without any embroidery or ornament whatever. He wore a pair of riding boots, with immense tops, shaped like a funnel, according to the mode of the day, and the dust upon these appendages, as well as the disordered state of his long wavy hair, seemed to announce that he had ridden far; while a large Sombrero hat, and a long steel-hilted Toledo sword, which lay beside him, led the mind naturally to conclude that his journey had been from Spain.