"Is that you, Arthur?" she said in a lugubrious voice. "Yes, aunt," said the young man, advancing in front of the line. "Well," continued the widow, in the same plaintive drawl, "is it over?" "Yes, aunt," said Arthur, in curt, deliberate accents. He seemed to be a young man who was perfectly satisfied with himself. There was a pause, after which Mme. de Saint-Cast drew from the depths of her expiring soul this new series of questions: "Did it go off well?" "Very well, aunt, very well." "Were there many people?" "The whole town, aunt, the whole town." "The military?" "Yes, aunt, the whole garrison, and the band." Mme. de Saint-Cast groaned, and added: "The fire brigade?" "The fire brigade too, aunt—certainly." I do not quite see why this last detail should have particularly affected Mme. de Saint-Cast, but she could not resist it. A sudden swoon, accompanied by infantile wailings, summoned all the resources of feminine sensibility to her aid, and gave us the opportunity of slipping away. I was glad of it. I could not bear to see this ridiculous vixen performing her hypocritical mummeries over the tomb of the weak, but good and loyal fellow, whose life she had embittered, and whose end she had probably hastened. A few moments later, Mme. Laroque asked me to accompany her to the Langoat farm, five or six leagues farther on towards the coast. She intended to dine there with her daughter. The farmer’s wife, who had been Mlle. Marguerite’s nurse, was ill, and the ladies had for some time meant to give her this proof of their interest in her welfare. We started at two o clock in the afternoon. It was one of the hottest days of this hot summer. Through the open windows of the carriage, the heavy, burning gusts which rose in waves from the parched _lande_ under the torrid sky, swept across us. The conversation suffered from our oppression. Mme. Laroque, who declared that she was in paradise, had at last thrown off her furs and remained sunk in a gentle ecstasy. Mlle. Marguerite fanned herself with Spanish gravity. While we slowly climbed the interminable hills, we saw the calcined rocks swarming with legions of silver-coated lizards, and heard the continuous crackling of the furze opening its ripe pods to the sun. In the middle of one of our laborious ascents a voice suddenly called out from the side of the road: "Stop, if you please." At the same time a big girl with bare legs, holding a distaff in her hand, and wearing the ancient costume and ducal coif of the peasants of this country, leaped quickly across the ditch, knocking over as she came along some of the sheep she was tending. She perched herself with a kind of grace on the carriage-step, and stood before us with her brown, self-possessed, and smiling face framed in the window. "Pardon, ladies," she said in the quick, melodious tones of her country, "will you be so kind as to read this to me?" She took from her bodice a letter folded in the ancient fashion.