Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/215

Rh When she showed them to me I smiled, as though I thought all she was saying was really true. So, after I had dressed her, and was starting out, she asked me to take a glass of wine. I told her I did not drink wine; and seeing two bottles on the mantlepiece, labeled "poison," I told her I did not like to take poison. She said she only put that there to keep the servants out. She went to the ball in full dress, and was the lioness of the evening.

A short time passed, when she and her lover had a quarrel, which was kept up for some time; several of the ladies tried to have it settled, and it was fortunate for him they did not succeed. She got in her possession the daguerreotype of an orator, which all at once turned up missing; either the orator had taken it away, or got some of the maids to do it for him; however, it was gone. She asked me to go to the gallery where it was taken, and have one taken from a picture that was there, as 1 was acquainted in the gallery, and give it to her. I refused, as I had no use for the gentleman's picture—she said no more, although she seemed displeased at my refusal.

Soon after this she was discharged from the family by whom she had been employed as governess. A gentleman and lady were boarding in the house with whom she became very intimate, rather more so with the gentleman than the lady. She staid there a great while as the companion of the lady. There was a lady going to Europe for two or three years, and the governess persuaded them to rent her house and go to housekeeping. They did as she requested, and she went with them. She dressed as the lady's twin sister instead of a governess.