"I am Father Louis! What am I wanted for?"
The publican found himself face to face with an enormously stout woman: a grotesque figure clad in light-coloured garments, so cut that they exaggerated her stoutness; a large, many-coloured shawl was thrown round her shoulders; on her head was a big round hat, tied with strings in a bow under her chin. This odd head-gear was topped with a bunch of gaudy feathers, ragged and out of curl. A veil of flowery design half hid this woman's features: though far from her first youth, she no doubt wished to appear young still. The skin of her face was covered with powder and paint, so badly laid on, that daubs of white, of red, and blue, lay side by side in all their crudity: there was no soft blending of tints: it was the make-up of no artist's hand.
"What an object!" thought the publican, staring at this oddity, who had seated herself on the porch seat and had placed on the ground a great wicker basket filled with vegetables.
"Ouf!" she cried. "It is a long step to your canteen, Father Louis! My word, I never thought I should get here! Well now, how is my little pet of a girl?"
Nonplussed, suspicious, Father Louis looked hard at this strange visitor: never had he seen anyone like her! What astonished him was to hear her calling him by the name used only by his familiars.
"Whoever are you?" he asked in a surly tone. "I don't remember you!"
"That's not surprising," cried the visitor, who seemed of a gay disposition, for she always laughed at the close of every sentence. "My goodness! It would be queer if you did not recognise me, considering you have never seen me before!... I am Aunt Palmyra, let me tell you!"
The innkeeper, more and more out of countenance, searched his memory in vain.
"Aunt Palmyra?" he echoed.
"Why, of course, you big stupid! Nichoune's aunt—a customer of yours, she is! She must have mentioned me often—I adore the little pet!"