"I give him a little flower that he may enjoy its perfume, and straightway he draws from it inspiration for all sorts of high-flown conceits, and fine compliments.

There's no doing anything with him--to the simplest, most commonplace remark he replies with a poetical flight of fancy." However, she could not have been very seriously displeased, for she took his arm again, and even leaned upon it rather more heavily than the exigencies of the way actually required; which goes to prove that the purest virtue is not insensible to pretty compliments, and that modesty itself knows how to recompense delicate flattery.
Not far from the road they were travelling stood a small group of thatched cottages--scarcely more than huts--whose inhabitants were all afield at their work, excepting a poor blind man, attended by a little ragged boy, who sat on a stone by the wayside, apparently to solicit alms from those who passed by.

Although he seemed to be extremely aged and feeble, he was chanting a sort of lament over his misfortunes, and an appeal to the charity of travellers, in a loud, whining, yet vigorous voice; promising his prayers to those who gave him of their substance, and assuring them that they should surely go to Paradise as a reward for their generosity.

For some time before they came up with him, Isabelle and de Sigognac had heard his doleful chant--much to the annoyance of the latter; for when one is listening, entranced, to the sweet singing of the nightingale, it is sorely vexatious to be intruded upon by the discordant croaking of a raven.

As they drew near to the poor old blind man, they saw his little attendant bend down and whisper in his ear, whereupon he redoubled his groans and supplications--at the same time holding out towards them a small wooden bowl, in which were a few coppers, and shaking it, so as to make them rattle as loudly as possible, to attract their attention.