"Oh! we know our rôles; you'll be content with us."
"But the woman doesn't come! suppose she should go back on us?"
"No danger! I told her I wanted a brooch."
"For your kitchen?"[Q]
"Why, no; to wear at my neck. Hark—someone is ringing—I'll bet that's she!"
And, in a moment, the maid came in and said to Rosa:
"Madame Putiphar is here."
"Well, show her in; she won't keep us from eating."
Almost on the instant there appeared a short but enormously stout woman, apparently somewhat between forty and fifty years of age; who had been, perhaps, in her prime, a piquant brunette, but was now simply a brunette without the piquancy, or rather a black; for her hair, whose thick plaits almost covered her cheeks, was of such a glossy ebon blackness that, at first sight, taken with her face, which was flushed and pimply, it made her head look as if it had been varnished. She was well supplied with clothes, too well supplied, in fact, for she wore two shawls,—a large one, with a smaller one over it,—a high collarette, with a cravat twisted round it; a cap, and over it a bonnet decorated with a lot of frippery; in addition, she carried a flat box under her arm, which led Dodichet to observe:
"This woman evidently carries a large part of her stock in trade about with her."