“An excellent plan. I couldn’t suggest a better. I am going to see what I can do in the way of getting you a maid, mademoiselle.”
“You sir? How can I deserve such great kindness?”
“My interest in you is the greater, as I think you come from Marseilles.”
Rosalie blushed. She was not aware that she lisped, and that this betrayed her. I extricated her from her confusion by telling the marquis his conjecture was well founded.
I asked him how I could get the Journal de Savans, the Mercure de France, and other papers of the same description. He promised to send me a man who would get me all that kind of thing. He added that if I would allow him to send me some of his excellent chocolate he would come and breakfast with us. I said that both gift and guest were vastly agreeable to me.
As soon as he had gone Rosalie asked me to take her to a milliner’s.
“I want ribbons and other little things,” said she, “but I should like to bargain for them and pay for them out of my own money, without your having anything to do with it.”
“Do whatever you like, my dear, and afterwards we will go to the play.”
The milliner to whom we went proved to be a Frenchwoman. It was a charming sight to see Rosalie shopping. She put on an important air, seemed to know all about it, ordered bonnets in the latest fashion, bargained, and contrived to spend five or six louis with great grandeur. As we left the shop I told her that I had been taken for her footman, and I meant to be revenged. So saying, I made her come into a jeweller’s, where I bought her a necklace, ear-rings, and brooches in imitation diamonds, and without letting her say a word I paid the price and left the shop.
“You have bought me some beautiful things,” said she, “but you are too lavish with your money; if you had bargained you might have saved four louis at least.”