“No home? no home? Were you not bound to Madame De Marke? How could I, or any one, provide for you better? You astonish me by these complaints!”
“Madame De Marke gave up her house almost a year ago,” answered the girl, with a degree of gentle firmness that imparted dignity even to her tone of supplication; “she is very rich; but no beggar in the street lives more meanly.”
“Well, but you were bound to her still; she is compelled by law to give you a home.”
The girl smiled a wan smile, but with an expression of some humor in it.
“Madame De Marke’s home! Do you know what it is, aunt? A room in the loft of one of her own buildings. The lowest servant in your house would turn from it in disdain; and for food, why, aunt, this rich woman lives absolutely the life of a beggar, and in the market asks, for her cat, refuse scraps of meat, which she devours herself. That was the home and food which Madame De Marke gave to me, after she left her house. Instead of being lady’s maid, I was compelled to sweep out the offices and scrub the stores for her tenants.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the lady, smoothing the trimming of her sleeve. “Madame De Marke forgot that I bound you to her, it seems to me.”
“No, madam, she did not forget it; and because you had abandoned me because of her knowledge that I was friendless, she made me a drudge. I was not strong; the work broke me down. Oh! aunt, I was heart-sick, and ready to fall down on my knees with gratitude for the least breath of kindness, and—and——”
“Well,” said the aunt, looking coldly up, as the poor girl paused, her eyes full of tears, her lips quivering.
“There was one noble person who was kind to me, so kind that I could not help loving him, aunt.” Catharine said this in a low voice, and trembling from head to foot.
“Him!” cried the aunt, half-starting from her lounge, “him, a man! Shameless girl! how dare you talk of a love like that in my presence?”