An unpleasant voice summoned her at this moment by the name of Flora, and she made a hasty purchase and rejoined her party. A few days after she came again. But I must first tell you how she came to be so frequent. Her aunt was one of those terrible British old maids, of which the world has heard much; and having nothing whatever to do, and a word or two of French, she had taken what she called an _interest in the French prisoners_. A big, bustling, bold old lady, she flounced about our market-place with insufferable airs of patronage and condescension. She bought, indeed, with liberality, but her manner of studying us through a quizzing-glass, and playing cicerone to her followers, acquitted us of any gratitude. She had a tail behind her of heavy, obsequious old gentlemen, or dull, giggling misses, to whom she appeared to be an oracle. ‘This one can really carve prettily: is he not a quiz with his big whiskers?’ she would say. ‘And this one,’ indicating myself with her gold eye-glass, ‘is, I assure you, quite an oddity.’ The oddity, you may be certain, ground his teeth. She had a way of standing in our midst, nodding around, and addressing us in what she imagined to be French: ‘_Bienne_, _hommes_! _ça va bienne_?’ I took the freedom to reply in the same lingo: _Bienne_, _femme_! _ça va couci-couci tout d’même_, _la bourgeoise_!’ And at that, when we had all laughed with a little more heartiness than was entirely civil, ‘I told you he was quite an oddity!’ says she in triumph. Needless to say, these passages were before I had remarked the niece.