"Yes; I dare to commit the great crime of being unwilling to awaken my mistress!"
"Ah! such are the results of the blind affection of the Princess for her niece," said the matron, with affected grief: "Miss Adrienne no longer respects her aunt's orders; and she is surrounded by young hare-brained persons, who, from the first dawn of morning, dress themselves out as if for ball-going."
"Oh, madame! how came you to revile dress, who were formerly the greatest coquette and the most frisky and fluttering of all the Princess's women. At least, that is what is still spoken of you in the hotel, as having been handed down from time out of mind, by generation to generation, even unto ours!"
"How! from generation to generation! do you mean to insinuate that I am a hundred years old, Miss Impertinence?"
"I speak of the generations of waiting-women; for, except you, it is the utmost if they remain two or three years in the Princess's house, who has too many tempers for the poor girls!"
"I forbid you to speak thus of my mistress, whose name some people ought not to pronounce but on their knees."
"However," said Georgette, "if one wished to speak ill of—"
"Do you dare!"
"No longer ago than last night, at half past eleven o'clock—"
"Last night?"