Joseph. I found him alone with Finois. The donkeys and their fair
guardian had gone.

"Well," said I, as we got upon our way, "I trust you had an agreeable
spell of rest? The lady in the Riviera hat looked promising. If her
conversation matched her appearance, you were in luck, and well repaid
for taking your refreshment out of doors."

"Monsieur," began Joseph, "have you in English a way of expressing in
one word what a man feels when he is both shocked and astonished?"

"Flabbergasted might do, at a pinch," I replied, after deliberation.

"Ah, the good word, 'flabbergasta'! It says much. It is that I am
flabbergasta by the young woman of the _anes_. I was taken, I admit
it, Monsieur, by her face, as was but natural. And then I wished to
find out, for the satisfaction of Monsieur and myself, how so strange
a cavalcade came to arrive upon the St. Bernard Pass.

"I made myself polite. I spoke with praise of the _anes_, and though
my advances were coldly received at first, at the very moment I would
in discouragement have ceased my efforts, the young woman changed her
front, and seemed willing to talk. She would not answer my questions,
except to say that she was of Mentone, and that she had escorted the
young gentleman who now employs her on several excursions, a year ago,
when he was on the Riviera. That he had sent for her and the two
_anes_ to join him by rail, though the expense was great, and that
they were travelling for the young gentleman's amusement, and his
health, as he had had an illness which has left him still thin, and a
little weak. From what place he had come, or to what place they were
bound, she would not say. Her own name she told me, when I had asked
twice over, but the young gentleman's name she would not give, nor
would she even say the country of his birth. It was when I brought up
this subject that the--the----"

"The flabbergasting began?"

"Precisely, Monsieur. She abused me for my curiosity, and, oh,
Monsieur, the words she used! The profanities! And at the same time
her face as mild as a pigeon's! She taunted me with being a
Protestant, as if it were a black crime which bred others. Her name,
if you would believe it, is Innocentina Palumbo--_Innocentina!_ But
her tongue! Monsieur, I listened as if I had been turned to stone.
And it was at this time that the young gentleman, of whom she had told
me, came out of the inn. He wished to walk, but Innocentina said that
he was already too