“What then do you wish to say?”

“Nothing, Monsieur.”

“How can that be?  You should not for nothing have wasted two days in coming from Aix to Marseilles, and should not have waited for me here until sunset, when to-morrow you must return home.”

“It is, however, true, Monsieur.  I know you will think me very foolish, but ...  I have nothing to tell you, and not for a fortune would I consent that people at Aix should know whither I am gone.”

“Something however induced you to come—­you are not one of those triflers who go hither and thither without a motive.  I think you are intellectual and intelligent.  Reflect.  What induced you to take a place in the diligence and come to see me?  Eh!”

“Well, sir,” said she, passing her hands over her cheeks as if to wipe away all blushes and embarrassment, and at the same time pushing her long black curls, moist as they were with perspiration, beyond her ears, “I had an idea which permitted me neither to sleep by day nor night; I said to myself, Reine, you must be satisfied.  You must say nothing to any one.  You must shut up your shop on Saturday night as you are in the habit of doing.  You must take a place in the night diligence and go on Sunday to Marseilles.  You will go to see that gentleman, and on Monday morning you can again be at work.  All will then be over and for once in your life you will have been satisfied without your neighbors having once fancied for a moment that you have passed the limits of the street in which you live.”

“Why, however, did you wish so much to see me?  How did you even know that I was here?”

“Thus, Monsieur:  a person came to Aix who was very kind to me, for I am the dressmaker of his daughters, having previously been a servant in his mother’s country-house.  The family has always been kind and attentive, because in Provence, the nobles do not despise the peasants.  Ah! it is far otherwise—­some are lofty and others humble, but their hearts are all alike. Monsieur and the young ladies knew how I loved to read, and that I am unable to buy books and newspapers.  They sometimes lent books to me, when they saw anything which they fancied would interest me, such as fashion plates, engravings of ladies’ bonnets, interesting stories, like that of Reboul, the baker of Nimes, Jasmin, the hairdresser of Agen, or Monsieur, the history of your own life.  They know, Monsieur, that above all things I love poetry, especially that which brings tears into the eyes.”

“Ah, I know,” said I with a smile, “you are poetical as the winds which sigh amid your olive-groves, or the dews which drip from your fig trees.”

“No, Monsieur, I am only a mantua-maker—­a poor seamstress in ... street, in Aix, the name of which I am almost ashamed to tell you.  I am no finer lady than was my mother.  Once I was servant and nurse in the house of M....  Ah! they were good people and treated me always as if I belonged to the family.  I too thought I did.  My health however, obliged me to leave them and establish myself as a mantua-maker, in one room, with no companion but a goldfinch.  That, however, is not the question you asked me,—­why I have come hither?  I will tell you.”