Lady Dorinda put another seed in her mouth, and reflected that Zélie's attendance was tardier than usual. She inquired with shadings of disapproval,—
"Is Madame La Tour's woman also on the walls?"
"Not Zélie, your highness"—
"Ladyship," insisted Lady Dorinda.
"That heavy-foot Zélie," chuckled the dwarf, deaf to correction, "a fine bit of thistledown would she be to blow around the walls. Zélie is laying beds for the children, and she hath come to words with the cook through trying to steal eggs to roast for them. We have but few wild fowl eggs in store."
"Tell her that I require her," said Lady Dorinda, fretted by the irregularities of life in a siege. "Madame La Tour will account with her if she neglects her rightful duties."
Le Rossignol crawled reluctantly up to stand in her dots of moccasins.
"Yes, your highness"—
"Ladyship," repeated Claude La Tour's widow, to whom the sting was forever fresh, reminding her of a once possible regency.
"But have you heard about the woman that was brought into the fortress before Madame Bronck went away?"