Then, on reaching a downhill road, she noticed there a number of women of the locality who were on the watch, offering furnished rooms, bed and board, according to the state of the pilgrim's purse.
"Which is the way to the Grotto, madame, if you please ?" asked Madame Vincent, addressing one old woman of the party.
Instead of answering the question, however, the other offered her a cheap room.

"You won't find anything in the hotels," said she, "for they are all full.

Perhaps you will be able to eat there, but you certainly won't find a closet even to sleep in." Eat, sleep, indeed! Had Madame Vincent any thought of such things; she who had left Paris with thirty sous in her pocket, all that remained to her after the expenses she had been put to! "The way to the Grotto, if you please, madame ?" she repeated.
Among the women who were thus touting for lodgers, there was a tall, well-built girl, dressed like a superior servant, and looking very clean, with carefully tended hands.

She glanced at Madame Vincent and slightly shrugged her shoulders.

And then, seeing a broad-chested priest with a red face go by, she rushed after him, offered him a furnished room, and continued following him, whispering in his ear.
Another girl, however, at last took pity on Madame Vincent and said to her: "Here, go down this road, and when you get to the bottom, turn to the right and you will reach the Grotto." Meanwhile, the confusion inside the station continued.