Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/154

154 quite safe, and she was not insensible to the advantage of having a young girl of Lucy's capacity and good temper, upon whom she might impose her duties without her indolent mistress giving herself the trouble to reprove, or even to notice her injustice. But there were occasions when she felt the presence of this faithful girl to be not only inconvenient, but dangerous. On one of these Lucy returned unexpectedly from Mrs. Hartell's sister's, where she had been sent to aid in the care of a sick child. The child had died suddenly, and Lucy, on re-entering the nursery, found Adéle at a tête-à-tête petit souper with a dear friend. Both master and mistress were out, and the keys had been left in trust with Adéle. The table was spread with the choicest luxuries of the pantry. After Adéle recovered from the first shock of Lucy's appearance, she resumed her conversation with her visitor in French with apparent ease, and with unwonted courtesy begged Lucy to join them. Lucy declined, and refused a glass of Burgundy, which Adéle said was "the best thing in the world to raise the spirits after seeing one little child die." When Adéle's friend was gone, and the relics of the supper removed, she said, as if soliloquising, "Oh, how generous madame is—she say to me alway 'Adéle, do with mine as if it were yours.' Ah, she is one angel, madame!"

Lucy understood the drift of this. No one likes to appear a passive dupe; and, nettled at Adéle's thinking her so, she said, in allusion to the Burgundy, "Does Mr. Hartell tell you, Adéle, to do with his as if it were your own?"

"Very impertinent, miss! just so you always