"'I have a lady, an English lady, who has reached years of maturity. She
occupies the other room.'

"I obtained, by means of an extra five sous a day, the privilege of
dining alone out in the yard when the weather was fine.

"My place was set outside the door, and I was beginning to gnaw the lean
limbs of the Normandy chicken, to drink the clear cider and to munch the
hunk of white bread, which was four days old but excellent.

"Suddenly the wooden gate which gave on the highway was opened, and a
strange lady directed her steps toward the house. She was very thin, very
tall, so tightly enveloped in a red Scotch plaid shawl that one might
have supposed she had no arms, if one had not seen a long hand appear
just above the hips, holding a white tourist umbrella. Her face was like
that of a mummy, surrounded with curls of gray hair, which tossed about
at every step she took and made me think, I know not why, of a pickled
herring in curl papers. Lowering her eyes, she passed quickly in front of
me and entered the house.

"That singular apparition cheered me. She undoubtedly was my neighbor,
the English lady of mature age of whom our hostess had spoken.

"I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had settled
myself to commence painting at the end of that beautiful valley which you
know and which extends as far as Etretat, I perceived, on lifting my eyes
suddenly, something singular standing on the crest of the cliff, one
might have said a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me,
she suddenly disappeared. I reentered the house at midday for lunch and