time wore on till at half-past ten I really was compelled to call on
my landlady for more coal. I could hear the muttered French still
going on, but I did not know where the coal was and could not fetch
it myself. I must break in upon her rhapsodizing.
"Delle Boulanger!" I called from my open door. "Delle Boulanger!"
The talking stopped. In a few moments Delle Josephine appeared, calm
and smiling, _minus_ the hat and the antimacassar. "Coming, _monsieur_"
"I shall want some more coal," said I, "It is getting colder, I think,
every minute!"
"_Mais oui, monsieur; il fait fret, il fait bien fret ce soir_, and
de snow--oh! It is _comme_--de old winter years ago, dat I remember,
_monsieur_, but not you. _Eh! bien_, the coal!"
I discovered nothing morbid about her manner; she was amiable and
respectful as usual, if a little more garrulous. The French will
talk at all times about anything, but our conversation always came
to a sudden stop the moment one of us relapsed into the mother tongue.
As long as a sort of common maccaronic was kept to we managed to
understand one another. After I made up my fire I sat up till long
past twelve. I heard no more talking downstairs but I could fancy
her still arrayed in those festive yet ghastly things, seated
opposite her own reflection, intent as a mummy and not unlike one
restored in modern costume. Pulling the blind aside before going to
bed, I could see with awe the arching snowdrifts outside my window.
If it went on snowing, I should not be able to open it on the morrow.
CHAPTER II
My prediction was verified in the morning. The snow had ceased
falling, but lay piled up against the lower half of my window. On
the level there appeared to be about three feet, while the drifts
showed from six to twenty feet I had never seen anything like it,
and was for sometime lost in admiration. Across the road the
children of the _epider_ and the good man himself were already busy
trying to shovel some of it away from the door. It seemed at first
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