Signing the Contract and What it Cost

“Yes, miss, it’s thrue as prachin’; just see now! we always have to feed him wid a silver fork too.” And taking up a bit in her fingers she offered it, saying coaxingly, “Ate it now, me jewel; it’s illegant, tender, and swate.”

He did not so much as sniff at it, but looked her steadily in the face, with a little growl, as much as to say, “Do you mean to insult me?”

She began to sing, still holding the bit of meat in her fingers and bringing it a little nearer to his nose.

He snapped at her with a short, sharp bark, and, laughing, she took up another piece with a silver fork, and silently offered it.

He only repeated his growl.

She began her song again, still holding out the piece on the fork, and he took it at once and devoured it greedily.

The door opened, and a comely woman, older and more staid in appearance than the merry, talkative Kathleen, came in, asking in a tone of irritation,

“What’s the matter here? what are you doing to Madame’s pet? she sent me down to see if he was getting abused.”

“Niver a bit at all, at all, Mary, me dear; sure an’ it’s mesilf that likes the little baste wid it’s cunnin’ thricks too well to abuse it, let alone that I’d niver hurt a livin’ crayther. Och, ye varmint! take it, will yees?” offering another choice morsel; “can’t yer see with half an eye that even the like o’ me can’t talk an’ sing both at onct? It’s worse than a babby yees are! Tra, la, la, la, la la!”

“Ten times worse!” observed the older woman testily, “but nothing to compare to his mistress, she’s more trouble than forty babies; never a wink o’ sleep do I git till long after midnight.”

“An’ do ye think, Mary, me dear, it’s much slape ye’d get wid forty babbies to the fore?” queried Kathleen, ceasing her song for a moment. “But I’m forgetting me manners. It’s the young lady that’s come to make the Madame’s dress, Mary,” she added, with a nod of her head in Floy’s direction.

“How do you do, miss?” said Mary civilly. “Don’t be discouraged at what I’ve been saying; the Madame has her good points as well as other folks; you’ll find her unreasonable and hard to please sometimes, but she’ll make it up to you; she’s very generous and free with her money.”

In reply Floy, having finished her meal, intimated that she would like to get to work at once.

“Then come with me; I’ll take you to the sewing-room and give you the skirts to work at till Madame is pleased to be fitted,” returned Mary, leading the way.

This, too, was a bright, cheery, prettily-furnished room, and Floy was not sorry to be left alone in it for the next hour. Quietness and solitude had become rare luxuries in the busy, crowded life of the homeless young orphan.

How quiet the house was! were there no children in it? No, surely only a childless woman could be so foolishly fond of an animal as this Madame evidently was.

CHAPTER XXI

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

“Oh, it comes o’er my memory
As doth the raven o’er the infected house.”

    Shakespeare, Othello.
No wonder Floy found the house so quiet. Madame’s dressing-room, adjoining the one where she sat, was tenantless, the lady herself sleeping soundly in the bedroom beyond, Frisky curled up by her side, and Mary dozing on a sofa near by, while Kathleen had locked up her kitchen and gone out upon some household errand.

As the clock on the mantel struck ten Madame awoke.

“Mary!” she called plaintively, “Mary, why did you let me sleep so long?”

“Because if I had not you would have reproved me for waking you,” returned the maid, shaking off her drowsiness and assuming a sitting posture upon the sofa.

“Mary, you are impolite, not to say unkind and disrespectful, to answer me so,” whimpered the mistress, applying a handkerchief to her eyes. “You don’t appreciate all I do for you. It isn’t every girl that can live in the luxury you do – fed and clothed like a lady – and lay by her five or six dollars every week too.”

“That’s true enough, Madame; but I’m sure I earn it all, and you know as well as I that you couldn’t get anybody else to serve you as much to your liking for twice the money. What will you be pleased to have for your breakfast?”

“Nothing,” returned Madame, sobbing behind her handkerchief.

“How will you have it prepared?” asked Mary with unmoved gravity.

Madame burst into a laugh. “I’ll have a broiled sweet-bread, hot buttered muffins, coffee, and marmalade.”

“Shall I prepare it?”

“No, ring for Kathleen.”

Mary touched the bell.

“What gown will Madame be pleased to wear?” she asked, bringing a basin of water and a towel to the bedside.

“That blue silk wrapper. Has Mrs. Sharp come?”

“No, but she has sent a young girl to work for you. I left her in the sewing-room making your skirts.”

“The top o’ the mornin’ to yees, Madame!” cried Kathleen, coming in fresh and rosy from her walk. “I hope ye’re aisy, an’ feel like atin’ a big breakfast. Ye breathe aisier nor ye do sometimes.”

Madame was seized at that moment with a wheezing asthmatic cough.

“I had a bad night,” she said pantingly, “and have no breath to spare. Tell her what to get me, Mary.”

Thirty years ago Madame Le Conte was a slender, graceful girl, with a clear olive complexion, delicate features, ruby lips, bright black eyes, and lively, engaging manners; now she was an overgrown, gross-looking, middle-aged, or rather elderly, woman, immensely fat, tortured with asthma, gout and sundry kindred ailments, dull, heavy, and uninteresting, nervous, irritable, childishly unreasonable and changeable, full of whims and fancies – a wretched burden to herself and all about her.

Rolling in wealth, she constantly sighed over the sad fact that there were none of her own kith and kin to inherit it, and that the service rendered her was not the service of love, but merely of self-interest.

Mary, her personal attendant, had been with her many years, thoroughly understood her ways, and knew how to minister to her wants as no one else did; and quite aware of the fact, sometimes took advantage of it to scold her mistress when much tried by her unreasonable demands, threatening to leave, and occasionally even refusing to obey orders, when Madame would angrily dismiss her, but on being seemingly taken at her word, would relent, burst into tears and pathetic entreaties, and buy a reconciliation with fair promises, increased wages, or expensive presents.

Madame wore a cork hand; how she had come to be deprived of her good right hand no one knew or dared ask, for she was extremely sensitive in regard to her loss, and would not endure the slightest allusion to it. Mary removed the artificial limb at night and replaced it in the morning without question or comment, and made it part of her business to divert the idle curiosity of others from this deformity of her mistress. This she did without waiting for instructions; for Mary had a heart, and often pitied the poor rich cripple from its very depths.

“Yes, she had a bad night, so don’t make her talk any more,” she said to Kathleen as she carefully laved her mistress’s face and hand. “She’ll have a broiled sweet-bread – ”

“No, no, let it be stewed; I’ll have it stewed,” interrupted the Madame.

Mary completed the bill of fare as given by her mistress a few moments before, and Kathleen turned to go, but had scarcely reached the door when she was called back.

“Waffles, waffles, Katty,” wheezed her mistress.

“Yes, ma’am; and muffins too?”

“No – yes, yes. Go, and make haste; I’m starved.”

Kathleen had reached the head of the stairs when she was again recalled, and tea and cream-toast substituted for coffee, muffins, and waffles; then the Madame thought she would prefer chocolate, and finally decided that all three should be prepared, toast and muffins also, and she would take her choice.

Even Kathleen’s almost imperturbable good-nature was somewhat tried. Her face clouded for a moment, but all was sunshine ere she reached her kitchen again, where she flew nimbly about, executing the latest orders of her capricious mistress, saying laughingly to herself: