'Hold! Where shall it be sent?' cries the man, giving in, but not confessing it, with awkward frankness.
A thousand thanks! Madame will pay for it at once; and laying down the money, she sweetly bows herself away, with the ring upon her finger.
'What a people!' ejaculated Lavinia, who always felt like a fly in a cobweb when she attempted to deal with the French, in her blunt, confiding way.
'It is great fun,' answered Amanda, flashing her ring with satisfaction after the skirmish. 'Will Madame kindly direct me to the house of Jacques Cœur?' she added, addressing an old woman clattering by in sabots.
'Allez toujours à droit en vous appuyant sur la gauche,' replied the native, beaming and bowing till the streamers of her cap waved in the wind.
They followed these directions, but failed to find the place, and applied to another old woman eating soup on her door-step.
'Suivez le chemin droit en tombant à gauche' was the reply, with a wave of the spoon to all the points of the compass.
'Great heavens, what a language!' cried Lavinia, who had been vainly endeavouring to 'support' herself, as she 'fell' in every direction over and into the full gutters.
The house was found at last, an ancient, mysterious place, with a very curious window, carved to look as if the shutters were half open, and from behind one peeped a man's head, from the other a woman's, both so life-like that it quite startled the strangers. Murray informed the observers that these servants are supposed to be looking anxiously for their master's return, Jacques having suddenly disappeared, after lending much money to the king, who took that mediæval way of paying his debts.