United States or Bulgaria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The corset was laced up and Mam'selle Julie told the child to hold her breath to let them get her body tighter. Now for the white frock: the skirt was slipped down over her head until it stood out in light, stiff pleats; the white bodice encased her body firmly and stuck out above the shoulders, its puffed sleeves trimmed with little white-satin bows and ribbons at every seam and fold.
At last he wearied out the old woman, and, frightened alike of herself and of him, she told him all, that Mam'selle Cannes was Mademoiselle Virginie de Crequy, daughter of the Count of that name. Who was the Count? Younger brother of the Marquis. Where was the Marquis? Dead long ago, leaving a widow and child. A son? Yes, a son. Where was he?
Jeanne was restless and had bad dreams, then slept soundly until after sunrise. "Antoine," she said to the tailor's little lad, "go down to the wharf and watch until the 'Flying Star' sails up the river. The tide is early. I will reward you well." "O Mam'selle, I will do it for love;" and he set off on a trot. "There are many kinds of love," mused Jeanne.
"Any gown the white linen one I had on yesterday." "Yes, Mam'selle." "No, not that. Any other gown. Is it to be hot?" "Very hot, Mam'selle. There is not a cloud in the sky." "How strange!" Domini said, in a low voice that Suzanne did not hear. When she was up and dressed she said: "I am going out to Count Anteoni's garden. I think I'll yes, I'll take a book with me."
And I think I have loved Mam'selle from a little child. Then, too," with an easy smile, "there is a suspicion that some Indian blood runs in Mam'selle's veins. On that ground we are even." Yes, M. Loisel had heard that. Mixed marriages were not approved of by the better class French, but a small share of Indian blood was not contemned.
"O, Mam'selle, you have made me beautiful!" she cried, in delight. "I shall be glad to do you honor, and for the sake of M. St. Armand; but my father would love me in the plainest gown." Mam'selle smiled over her handiwork. But Jeanne's beauty was her own. She had grown many shades fairer during the winter, and had not rambled about so much nor been on the water so often.
She would turn her head, change the curve of her pretty lips, allow her eyes to rove about and then let the lids drop decorously in a fashion he called a nun's face; but it was adorable. "I shall not be a nun," she would declare vehemently. "No, Mam'selle, thou art the kind to dance on a man's heart and make him most happy and most wretched. No nun's coif for that sunny, tangled mop of thine."
At one time we had a French governess, a loved and valued "mam'selle," in the household. When I was ten years old I made my first journey to Europe. My birthday was spent in Cologne, and in order to give me a thoroughly "party" feeling I remember that my mother put on full dress for my birthday dinner. I do not think I gained anything from this particular trip abroad.
In the murmured reply that followed, almost inaudible though it was, my ear distinguished a tone that set my heart beating. "Well, I can't tell, of course," said Madame Bouïsse, in answer, evidently, to the remark just made; "but if mam'selle will only take the trouble to look in the glass, and then look at the picture, she will see how like it is.
"The other gentleman, mam'selle," replied Müller, "is an Englishman, and troubled with the spleen. You must not mind anything he says." Troubled with the spleen! I believe myself to be as even-tempered and as ready to fall in with a joke as most men; but I should have liked at that moment to punch Franz Müller's head. Gracious heavens! into what a position he had now brought us!