"Angelique?" said I, with an effort.
"Yes, Angelique; how droll—you know my name, monsieur!"
It was the pretty Bretonne, with her scanty bodice and spotlessly white shirt; her black eyes beaming with kindness and pleasure; her dark hair surmounted by her high linen coif of a fashion old as the days of Charles VIII.
"You know me—you are sensible at last," she continued; "ah, how happy mademoiselle will be to hear of this?"
"Who is she?"
"Ah, good heavens—is it possible—don't you know—Mademoiselle de Broglie, your protectress?"
"And you?"
"I have the honour to be her soubrette—her friend almost, for we are foster children. Every morning and every night I made a sign of the cross on your forehead with the holy water from my font, and I knew that it would cure you, even if everything else failed."
"Cure me—I have, then, been ill?"
"O! mon Dieu—so ill!" shrugging her white shoulders and clasping her little hands.