And we drank with open mouth and expanded chest that fresh breath which came from the ocean and which glided slowly over the skin, salted by its long contact with the waves. Wrapped up in her square shawl, inspired by the balmy air and with teeth firmly set, the English woman gazed fixedly at the great sun ball, as it descended towards the sea. Soon its rim touched the waters, just in rear of a ship which appeared on the horizon, until, by degrees, it was swallowed up by the ocean. It was seen to plunge, diminish, and finally to disappear. Miss Harriet contemplated with a passionate regard the last glimmer of the flaming orb of day. She muttered: "Aoh! I loved ... I loved ..." I saw a tear start in her eye. She continued: "I wish I were a little bird, so that I could mount up into the firmament." She remained standing as I had often before seen her, perched on the river's banks, her face as red as her purple shawl. I should have liked to have sketched her in my album. It would have been an ecstatic caricature. I turned my face away from her so as to be able to laugh. I then spoke to her of painting, as I would have done to a fellow artist, using the technical terms common among the devotees of the profession. She listened attentively to me, eagerly seeking to define the sense of the obscure words, so as to penetrate my thoughts. From time to time, she would exclaim: "Oh! I understand, I understand. This has been very interesting." We returned home. The next day, on seeing me, she approached me eagerly, holding out her hand; and we became firm friends immediately. She was a brave creature who had a kind of elastic soul, which became enthusiastic at a bound. She lacked equilibrium, like all women who are spinsters at the age of fifty. She seemed to be pickled in vinegar innocence, though her heart still retained something of youth and of girlish effervescence. She loved both nature and animals with a fervent ardor, a love like old wine, fermented through age, with a sensual love that she had never bestowed on men. One thing is certain, that a bitch in pup, a mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at its side, a bird's nest full of young ones, squeaking, with their open mouths and enormous heads, made her quiver with the most violent emotion. Poor solitary beings! Tristias and wanderers from table d'hote to table d'hote, poor beings, ridiculous and lamentable. I love you ever since I became acquainted with Miss Harriet! I soon discovered that she had something she would like to tell me, but she dare not, and I was amused at her timidity. When I started out in the morning with my box on my back, she accompanied me as far as the end of the village, silent, but evidently struggling inwardly to find words with which to begin a conversation. Then she left me abruptly, and, with a jaunty step, walked away quickly. One day, however, she plucked up courage: "I would like to see how you paint pictures? Will you? I have been very curious."[3]