The mother, who has turned her head, thinks at first that some one has come from the shop to get the week's work.
"My husband has just gone to your place, Monsieur.

We have nothing here.
Monsieur Delobelle has taken everything." The man comes forward without speaking, and as he approaches the window his features can be distinguished.

He is a tall, solidly built fellow with a bronzed face, a thick, red beard, and a deep voice, and is a little slow of speech.
"Ah! so you don't know me, Mamma Delobelle ?" "Oh! I knew you at once, Monsieur Frantz," said Desiree, very calmly, in a cold, sedate tone.
"Merciful heavens! it's Monsieur Frantz." Quickly Mamma Delobelle runs to the lamp, lights it, and closes the window.
"What! it is you, is it, my dear Frantz ?" How coolly she says it, the little rascal! "I knew you at once." Ah, the little iceberg! She will always be the same.
A veritable little iceberg, in very truth.

She is very pale, and her hand as it lies in Frantz's is white and cold.
She seems to him improved, even more refined than before.

He seems to her superb, as always, with a melancholy, weary expression in the depths of his eyes, which makes him more of a man than when he went away.
His weariness is due to his hurried journey, undertaken immediately on his receipt of Sigismond's letter.