The Chevalier's daughter

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Once released, I ran all over the house, peeped into the great old kitchen, where I received many welcomes and blessings from the old servants, and ascended to the top of the round tower to gaze at the sea and at Mount St. Michael, now glowing in the autumn sunshine. True to the habits of implicit obedience in which I had been brought up, I did not even open the door which led into the upper floors of the tower, though I confess to a strong temptation to do so.

I admired the salon hung with tapestry and adorned with carved furniture and various grim family pictures. I wondered what was in the cabinets, and studied the story of Judith worked in the hangings, and had not half finished my survey, when the bell rang, and I hastened to my mother's room.

We dined in considerable state, being waited on by two men servants, while Mistress Grace stood behind her lady's chair and directed their movements. The fare, though plain enough, was dainty compared to what I was accustomed to at the cottage, and I should have enjoyed my dinner only for a feeling of awkwardness, and a look in Mistress Grace's eyes as if she were longing to pounce upon me. I got pounced upon many a time after that, fur great stress was laid upon table etiquette in those days. More than once I was sent away from the table in disgrace, not so much for mistakes I made, as for fuming or pouting at having them corrected.

The next day my lessons began. I had my task of Scripture and the Catechism to learn, as at the cottage. Great stress was laid in the families of the Religion on this learning of the Scriptures, and with good reason, for we were liable at any time to be deprived of our Bibles, or indeed to be shut up where we could not have read if we had them; but that which was stored in our minds no one could take from us. I learned to write and began English, and, thanks to the pains and skill of my mother and the conversations I held with Mrs. Grace in our working hours, I soon learned to speak the language with considerable fluency, as well as to read in two or three English books which my mother possessed. I learned to spin on the little wheel which my mother had had sent her from England, and was greatly delighted when I was allowed to carry down to Mother Jeanne some skeins of thread of my own manufacture.

"But it is beautiful—no less," said Jeanne; "and done, you say, not with spindle and distaff, but with the little machine I have seen in madame's boudoir. See, Lucille, my child!"

"It is good thread, but I do not see that it much better than ours," said Lucille, somewhat slightingly. "And I do not see why one should take so much pains to learn to spin in this new fashion. The spindle and distaff are much better, I think, because they can be carried about with one. I can spin when I am going to the fountain for water or to the pasture for the cows. Vevette cannot do that with her grand wheel."

"That is true," said I, a little taken down; "but one can accomplish so much more. My mother can spin more with the wheel in an hour than one can do with the distaff in half a day, and I am sure the thread is more even."

"Ah, well, the method of my grandmother is good enough for me," said Lucille. "I am a Norman girl, and not an English lady." And she took up her distaff as she spoke, and began drawing out her flax with a care and attention which showed she was offended.

"Do you think, Mamselle Vevette, that madame would condescend to let me look at this wheel of hers?" said David. "I should like so much to see it."

"Why, do you think you could make one like it?" I asked. "Oh, do, David! Make one for Lucille, and I will teach her to use it."