Livette, charitable as she was at every opportunity, at once felt that she must be on her guard against this vagabond, who knew her name. Her father and grandmother had gone to Arles, to see the notary, who would soon have to be drawing up the papers for her marriage to Renaud, the handsomest drover in all Camargue. She was alone in the house. Distrust gave her strength to refuse. "Our Camargue isn't an olive country," said she curtly, "oil is scarce here. I haven't any." "But I see some in the jar at the bottom of the cupboard, beside the water-pitcher." Livette turned hastily toward the cupboard. It was closed; but, in truth, the stock of olive oil was there in a jar beside the one in which they kept Rhône water for their daily needs. "I don't know what you mean," said Livette. "The lie came from your mouth like a vile black wasp from a garden-flower, little one!" said the motionless figure, still leaning heavily on the window-sill, evidently determined to remain. "The oil is where I say it is, and more than twenty-five litres too; I can see it from here. Come, come, take a clean bottle and the tin funnel and give me quickly what I want. I'll tell you, in exchange, what I see in your future." "It's a deadly sin to seek to know what God doesn't wish us to know," said Livette, "and you can guess that oil is kept in cupboards and still be no more of a sorceress than I am. Go about your business, good-wife. I can give you some of this bread, fresh baked last night, if you wish, but I tell you I haven't any oil." "And why do they call you Livette," said the Queen calmly, "if it isn't on account of the field of old olive-trees--the oldest and finest in the country--owned by your father, near Avignon? There you were born. There you remained until you were ten years old, and at that age--seven years ago, a mystic number--you came here, where your father was made farmer, overseer of drovers, manager of everything, by the Avignonese master of this 'Château d'Avignon,' the finest in all Camargue.--'Livettes! livettes!' that's the way you used to ask for _olivettes_, olives, when you were a baby. You were very fond of them, and the nickname clung to you. A pretty nickname, on my word, and one that suits you well, for if you're not dark like the ripe olive, you're fair as the virgin oil, a pearl of amber in the sunlight, and then you are not yet ripe. Your face is oval, and not stupidly round like a Norman apple. You have the pallor of the olive-leaves seen from below.--And that you may soon see them so, little one, is the blessing I ask for you, as the curés of your chapels say, where they take us in for pity. Be compassionate as they are, in the name of your Lord Jesus Christ, and give me some oil quickly, I say--in the name of extreme unction and the garden of agony!"