At that moment, she met two women on their way to the spring, walking steadily between the two bars, the ends of which they held in their hands, and from which, exactly in the middle, the water-jug was suspended by its two ears.
“It is just the time for the spring,” said Livette to herself, and she followed them at a foot-pace.
“Good-day, mademoiselle,” the women said as they passed, for the pretty maiden of the Château d’Avignon was known to everybody.
There was as yet no one at the spring. The two women waited, and Livette with them.
“How do you happen to be riding about so early, mademoiselle? Are you looking for some one?”
“I am out for a ride,” said Livette, “and as it’s the time for drawing water, I thought I would stop here a moment. My friends will surely come sooner or later.”
No more was said, and Livette, having nothing else to do, looked closely for the first time at the carved stone escutcheon in the centre of the high arched wall above the spring. It is the town crest, and it is needless to say that it includes a boat, a boat without mast or oars, in which the two Maries—Jacobé and Salomé—are standing.
“I have often wondered,” said Livette, “why they put only the figures of two holy women in the boat. For haven’t our mothers always told us there were three of them? Were there three or not?”
“Certainly there were three, my pretty innocent,” said the older of the two women, “but Sara was the servant, and no honor is due to her.”
“If the third was Saint Sara, then there were not three Marys, eh? But I have always heard it said that the Magdalen was there, and that she went away from here and died at Sainte-Baume.”