Just then the woman of substance sailed up, and hoped with a deference that astounded the new visitor that she was rested after her journey, and recounted a whole Odyssey of her private misadventures during yesterday's ascent--how her _chaise_ positively broke down under her, and she had to be taken aside into a dreadful little smelly cottage, or rather the outside of it, under the vines, lest she should be trampled by the procession of donkeys and mules coming behind; and how those wretched foreigners did nothing but laugh and make faces and address impertinent remarks to her in an unknown tongue, that her husband said was neither French nor Italian, nor any civilized speech; and how finally her porters were doubled, and a sort of basket or tub was brought, and she was forced into it, and slung and jolted on four broomsticks by her four porters, at the peril of all five lives, to the present eminence, on which she supposed she must end her days, unless a proper road could be made before her time came. Ermengarde listened with a sympathetic face and proper interjections, wondering if the rounded softness of that passionately dark blue sea-rim, so much less sharply edged than paler seas--if that came from the clear and vapourless air, through which one saw so far over the very slope of the world; and presently, when the Odyssey came to a pause, she made some reference to the romance and charm of Provence. "Provence," mused the woman of substance. "H'm, yes; Provence roses. Never was there in my life. But I dare say you have travelled a good deal." "But surely you came by the _Train de Luxe_ yesterday?" "Oh yes. Mr. Robinson's extravagance--quite unnecessary----" "Then you were in Provence yesterday," murmured Ermengarde drowsily, quite sure now that she saw over the earth-slope, and the woman of substance, coupling this obviously inaccurate statement with the unaccountable excursions into foreign languages of the previous day, looked curiously at her, and wondered if it was drink or incipient insanity. "So young, too!" she reflected mournfully, turning away to find a comfortable and yet substantial seat, but turning once again to look at the figure extended in the sun among the flowers in the dish-cover hat, the uncompromising dowdiness of which conveyed comforting assurance of respectability to her motherly soul. Vice and that hat could never be companions, she was sure.