“Well, I am so glad, young ladies, you’re going out with your mamma, at last—I never saw my mistress look so well as she does to-night.”
Triumphant, and feeling herself to be a person of consequence, Grace was indefatigably busy, and Mrs. Harcourt thought that her talkative zeal was the overflowing of an honest heart.
After Mrs. Harcourt, with Isabella and Matilda, were gone to the opera, Favoretta, who had been sent to bed by her mother, because she was in the way when they were dressing, called to Grace to beg that she would close the shutters in her room, for the moon shone upon her bed, and she could not go to sleep.
“I wish mamma would have let me sit up a little longer,” said Favoretta, “for I am not at all sleepy.”
“You always go to bed a great deal earlier, you know, miss,” said Grace, “when your governess is at home; I would let you get up, and come down to tea with me, for I’m just going to take my late dish of tea, to rest myself, only I dare not let you, because—”
“Because what?”
“Because, miss, you remember how you served me about the queen-cake.”
“But I do not want you to give me any queen-cake; I only want to get up for a little while,” said Favoretta.
“Then get up,” said Grace: “but don’t make a noise, to waken Master Herbert.”
“Do you think,” said Favoretta, “that Herbert would think it wrong?”