The Chevalier's daughter

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"Thank Heaven, you are come, madame!" said she breathlessly. "I have sent everywhere for you. Mamselle Grace has had a swoon, and we cannot bring her to herself."

"A swoon? How was that?" asked my mother, as we all quickened our steps. "I thought she was feeling very well this morning."

"She was, madame; but you were no sooner out of the house than she would make me help her up and dress her, and she has been up ever since. She would even walk into your room, leaning on my arm, and sat there while I dusted the furniture, though I had dusted it all not more than an hour before," said Julienne, in an aggrieved voice. "Then she would have her work-basket and darn a cambric ruffle of monsieur's, and all I could say she would not lie down. I assure madame that I did my best to persuade her."

"I doubt it not, my good Julienne; but what then?"

"Then, just as the bell rang for noon, she said she felt tired, and would lie down. I called Marie and Annette, for I saw she looked dreadfully ill; but we had not got her on the bed before she fainted, and we cannot get a sign of life from her any more than if she were dead. So I sent for madame."

We had reached the tower by that time, and any mother run up-stairs to Mrs. Grace's room, closely followed by myself. Though I had never, to my knowledge, seen death before, I knew, the moment I set eyes upon Grace, what had happened. People talk of death and sleep being alike, but I can never see the resemblance. We tried a long time and in every way to bring back animation, but it was of no use, and we soon came to perceive that our good faithful friend had left us forever.

I cannot describe my mother's grief on the occasion. Grace had been her own personal attendant ever since she could remember. She had been taken into my grandmother's nursery a little maid of nine years old, and had been specially assigned to my mother. She had followed her mistress to a strange land, had been with her through all her ill-health and the loss of her many children, had been nurse, friend, companion, and servant, all in one. I loved Grace dearly, lamented her deeply; but the event was not to me what it was to my mother.

However, she was gone, and there was an end. The servants wept, too, as they prepared her body for the grave. They forgot all the scoldings she had given them, and only remembered how she had nursed them in sickness, and the numberless kindnesses she had shown them and their friends at home.

"I was vexed enough at her this morning," sobbed Julienne, who, as a bit of a slattern, and especially as being guilty of the crowning enormity of having a sweetheart, most frequently fell under the displeasure of Mrs. Grace; "but I am sure I would dust all the furniture of the house thrice over if it would do her any good."

"And what will madame do without her?" asked Marie. "Nobody can know her ways like Mamselle Grace, though there are perhaps others who can govern the household as well, or even better. I always thought she was very wasteful of sugar and honey in preserving the fruits."