A DINNER DIFFICULTY.
The clock had struck four some time, and Madame de la Fite said she feared they kept me from dinner. I knew it must soon be ready, and therefore made but a slight negative. She then, with an anxious look at her watch, said she feared she was already too late for her own little dinner. I was shocked at a hint I had no power to notice, and heard it in silence—silence unrepressing! for she presently added, “You dine alone, don't you?”
“Y-e-s,—if Mrs. Schwellenberg is not well enough to come down stairs to dinner.”
“And can you dine, ma chere mademoiselle—can you dine at that great table alone?”
“I must!—the table is not mine.”
“Yes, in Mrs. Schwellenberg's absence it is.”
“It has never been made over to me, and I take no power that is not given to me.”
“But the queen, my dearest ma'am—the queen, if she knew such a person as Madame de la Roche was here.”
She stopped, and I was quite disconcerted. An attack so explicit, and in presence of Madame de la Roche, was beyond all my expectations. She then went to the window, and exclaimed, “It rains!—Mon Dieu! que ferons-nous?—My poor littel dinner!—it will be all spoilt!—La pauvre Madame de la Roche! une telle femme!”