The sight of such goodly limbs as those possessed by Monsieur Marteville, but more especially the blue velvet pourpoint to which we have formerly alluded, and which he wore on the present occasion, did not fail to produce the most favourable impression on the mind of the landlady; and, bustling about with the activity of a grasshopper, she prepared to serve the athletic cavalier and his pretty lady to the best cheer of the _auberge_. "Would Madame choose some stewed escargots _pour se restaurer_? Would Monsieur take _un coup de vin_ before dinner to wash the dust out of his mouth? Would Madame step up-stairs to repose herself? Would Monsieur take a _gouter_?" These and a thousand other civil proffers the hostess showered upon the Norman and Louise, some of which were accepted, some declined; but the principal thing on which the Norman seemed to set his heart was the speedy preparation of dinner, which he ordered with the true galloping profusion of a beggar on horseback, demanding _the best of every thing_. While this was in progress, he forgot not the principal object of his journey, but began with some circumlocution to draw the hostess towards the subject of Fontrailles' visit to Mesnil. At the very mention, however, of a little man in grey, the good landlady burst forth in such a torrent of invective that she went well nigh to exhaust her copious vocabulary of epithets and expletives; while the Norman, taken by surprise, stood gazing and shrugging his shoulders, wondering at her facility of utterance, and the vast rapidity with which she concatenated her hard names. The little man in grey, who had been there precisely ten days before, was, according to her opinion, a liar, and a rogue, and a cheat; a conjuror, a Huguenot, and a vagabond; a man without honour, principle, or faith; a _maraud_, a _matin_, a _misérable_; together with a great many other titles the enumeration of which she summed up with "_et s'il n'est pas le Diable, le Diable l'emporte!_" "_C'est vrai_," cried the Norman every time she paused to take breath; "_C'est vrai._ But how came you to find out he was so wicked?"