last, unable to restrain her ardent curiosity any longer, she put out her little brown hand and softly felt of Isabelle’s gown, apparently finding exquisite delight in the mere contact of her finger-tips with the smooth, glossy surface of the silk.  Though her touch was so light Isabelle immediately turned towards the child and smiled upon her encouragingly, but the poor little vagabond, finding herself detected, in an instant had assumed a stupid, almost idiotic look—­with an instinctive amount of histrionic art that would have done honour to a finished actress.  Then dropping her eyelids and leaning her shoulders against the hard back of the wooden settle she seemed to fall into a deep sleep, with her head bent down upon her breast in the old attitude.

Meanwhile Maitre Chirriguirri had been talking long and loudly about the choice delicacies he could have set before his guests if they had only come a day or two earlier, and enumerating all sorts of fine dishes—­which doubtless had existed only in his own very vivid imagination—­though he told a high-sounding story about the noblemen and grandees who had supped at his house and devoured all these dainties only yesterday.  When at length the flow of his eloquence was checked by a display of ferocity on the part of the tyrant, and he was finally brought to the point, he acknowledged that he could only give them some of the soup called garbure—­with which we have already made acquaintance at the Chateau de Sigognac, some salt codfish, and a dish of bacon; with plenty of wine, which according to his account was fit for the gods.  Our weary travellers were so hungry by this time that they were glad of even this frugal fare, and when Mionnette, a gaunt, morose-looking creature, the only servant that the inn could boast, announced that their supper was ready in an adjoining room, they did not wait to be summoned a second time.

They were still at table when a great barking of dogs was heard without, together with the noise of horses’ feet, and in a moment three loud, impatient knocks upon the outer door resounded through the house.  Mionnette rushed to open it, whereupon a gentleman entered, followed by a number of dogs, who nearly knocked the tall maid-servant over in their eagerness to get in, and rushed into the dining-room where our friends were assembled, barking, jumping over each other, and licking off the plates that had been used and removed to a low side table, before their master could stop them.  A few sharp cuts with the whip he held in his hand distributed promiscuously among them, without distinction between the innocent and the guilty ones, quieted this uproar as if by magic, and the aggressive hounds, taking refuge under the benches ranged along the walls, curled themselves round on the floor and went comfortably to sleep, or lay panting, with their red tongues hanging out of their mouths and heads reposing on their fore-paws—­not daring to stir.