[Original]
“Yes—that she was; and ‘tis likely to finish badly, for it seems that she does things at Paris—oh! such things—”
“What things?”
“Oh, my dear; I can hardly venture—”
“Fell, but what are they?”
“Why,” said the worthy dame, with a sort of embarrassment and confusion, which showed how much she was shocked by such enormities, “they say, that Mademoiselle Adrienne never sets foot in a church, but lives in a kind of heathen temple in her aunt’s garden, where she has masked women to dress her up like a goddess, and scratches them very often, because she gets tipsy—without mentioning, that every night she plays on a hunting horn of massive gold—all which causes the utmost grief and despair to her poor aunt the princess.”
Here the bailiff burst into a fit of laughter, which interrupted his wife.
“Now tell me,” said he, when this first access of hilarity was over, “where did you get these fine stories about Mademoiselle Adrienne?”
“From Rene’s wife, who went to Paris to look for a child to nurse; she called at Saint-Dizier House, to see Madame Grivois, her godmother.—Now Madame Grivois is first bedchamber woman to the princess—and she it was who told her all this—and surely she ought to know, being in the house.”