“Ten times worse!” observed the older woman testily, “but nothing to compare to his mistress, she’s more trouble than forty babies; never a wink o’ sleep do I git till long after midnight.”
“An’ do ye think, Mary, me dear, it’s much slape ye’d get wid forty babbies to the fore?” queried Kathleen, ceasing her song for a moment. “But I’m forgetting me manners. It’s the young lady that’s come to make the Madame’s dress, Mary,” she added, with a nod of her head in Floy’s direction.
“How do you do, miss?” said Mary civilly. “Don’t be discouraged at what I’ve been saying; the Madame has her good points as well as other folks; you’ll find her unreasonable and hard to please sometimes, but she’ll make it up to you; she’s very generous and free with her money.”
In reply Floy, having finished her meal, intimated that she would like to get to work at once.
“Then come with me; I’ll take you to the sewing-room and give you the skirts to work at till Madame is pleased to be fitted,” returned Mary, leading the way.
This, too, was a bright, cheery, prettily-furnished room, and Floy was not sorry to be left alone in it for the next hour. Quietness and solitude had become rare luxuries in the busy, crowded life of the homeless young orphan.
How quiet the house was! were there no children in it? No, surely only a childless woman could be so foolishly fond of an animal as this Madame evidently was.