“Oh,” said the guest, “if that be all, my wife has an excellent one that she will part with; she has been several years with a French dressmaker in St. Petersburg to learn the trade, and I am sure my wife would be glad to let Madame D——f have her.”
“Eh bien!” replied the other, “and her price?”
“Two hundred and fifty silver roubles.”
“That,” answered the host, “is, I am sure, much more than we should like to give for a servant; we had better hire one; Madame D. is going to Moscow, and she must engage one there.”
“What do you say then to two hundred?”
“Still too much.”
“Well, then, listen, mon ami: you were talking of buying a new instrument: will you give me one hundred roubles and your old piano?”
Both parties agreed to these terms, and it was arranged that the girl should be sent in the course of the following week, and that the rickety old piano should be duly forwarded in exchange. Madame D.’s dressmaker arrived at the stated time; she was about twenty-five years of age and a good needlewoman. After having served a month or six weeks her mistress told me in confidence “that she thought she had made a fair bargain,” and even seemed to intimate that the proprietor had cheated himself in the affair. I ought to add that the girl herself was a consenting party to the transaction.
At another time when I was in St. Petersburg, a young servant-girl of sixteen came into the room and begged to know if her mistress would buy her, for her proprietress wanted some money, and would be glad to sell her.
“I really do not know what to say to it,” was the reply. “How much does she ask for you, Marousha?”