"That accounts for the sign I saw," spoke Cora, telling her chums of the notice that an apprentice was wanted. "Mary must have been discharged. Madam would never keep two—in Chelton."
Madam Julia, as she was always called, entered with a swish of skirts and leaving a trail of French instructions behind her in the work-room—instructions to her employees as to the trimming on this "effect" and the reshaping of that "creation."
"Ah, yes, Mees Kimball," she began. "I am all in readiness—but—pardon—zat Marie—she haf left me—in such hastiness—I am all at what you call ze ocean—how you express it?"
With a pretty little motion of her hands she looked appealingly at
Cora.
"You mean all at sea, madam."
"Ah, yes! At sea! How comprehensive! Ze sea is always troubled, and so am I. Zat Marie she left me so suddenness—I know not where are all my things—I depend so much on her—"
"Has Miss Downs left?" Cora could not refrain from asking.
"Ha! Yes! Zat is eet. Precisely. So quickly she go away an' leaf me. She does not think much about it, perhaps, but I am too busy to be so annoyed. Just some relation not well—indisposition, maybe—well—voila! she is gone—it was not so in my time that a girl must leaf her trade and depart with such quickness—run away. Louise! Louse! Come instantly and for me find zat motor chapeau for Mademoiselle Kimball."
Her voice rose to a shrill call.
"Quick!" she called, and then came a string of French. "I must not be kept waiting—eet was already packed—"