Voss had brought home a young wife and had made a fool of himself.
He was a man entitled to have a wife much younger than himself.
Madame Voss in those days always wore a white cap and a dark stuff
gown, which was changed on Sundays for one of black silk, and brown
mittens on her hands, and she went about the house in soft carpet
shoes. She was a conscientious, useful, but not an enterprising
woman; loving her husband much and fearing him somewhat; liking to
have her own way in certain small matters, but willing to be led in
other things so long as those were surrendered to her; careful with
her children, the care of whom seemed to deprive her of the power of
caring for the business of the inn; kind to her niece, good-humoured
in her house, and satisfied with the world at large as long as she
might always be allowed to entertain M. le Cure at dinner on
Sundays. Michel Voss, Protestant though he was, had not the
slightest objection to giving M. le Cure his Sunday dinner, on
condition that M. le Cure on these occasions would confine his
conversation to open subjects. M. le Cure was quite willing to eat
his dinner and give no offence.

A word too must be said of Marie Bromar before we begin our story.
Marie Bromar is the heroine of this little tale; and the reader must
be made to have some idea of her as she would have appeared before
him had he seen her standing near her uncle in the long room
upstairs of the hotel at Granpere. Marie had been fifteen when she
was brought from Epinal to Granpere, and had then been a child; but
she had now reached her twentieth birthday, and was a woman. She
was not above the middle height, and might seem to be less indeed in
that house, because her aunt and her uncle were tall; but she was
straight, well made, and very active. She was strong and liked to
use her strength, and was very keen about all the work of the house.