Very soon a woman who seemed to be about thirty years old appeared on
the threshold of the door, spinning as she came. She was an
Auvergnate, a high-colored, comfortable-looking, straightforward sort
of person, with white teeth; her cap and dress, the face, full figure,
and general appearance, were of the Auvergne peasant stamp. So was her
dialect; she was a thorough embodiment of her district; its
hardworking ways, its thrift, ignorance, and heartiness all met in
her.
She greeted Raphael, and they began to talk. The dogs quieted down;
the old man went and sat on a bench in the sun; the child followed his
mother about wherever she went, listening without saying a word, and
staring at the stranger.
"You are not afraid to live here, good woman?"
"What should we be afraid of, sir? When we bolt the door, who ever
could get inside? Oh, no, we aren't afraid at all. And besides," she
said, as she brought the Marquis into the principal room in the house,
"what should thieves come to take from us here?"
She designated the room as she spoke; the smoke-blackened walls, with
some brilliant pictures in blue, red, and green, an "End of Credit," a
Crucifixion, and the "Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard" for their sole
ornament; the furniture here and there, the old wooden four-post
bedstead, the table with crooked legs, a few stools, the chest that
held the bread, the flitch that hung from the ceiling, a jar of salt,
a stove, and on the mantleshelf a few discolored yellow plaster
figures.
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