"But surely your heart will grow sore when you do not see your little mistress daily?"
"Daily—daily, your ladyship? This is the second time I have laid eyes on her face in six years! There was a time when I saw her daily, hourly—when she needed me all the time. Is not that so, my little mistress? Don't you remember how I had a little son, and how he called me chère maman, and I called him mon petit garçon?"
As she spoke, she laid the cards one by one on her snowy apron. She looked intently at them for several moments, then continued:
"No; I don't need to know anything, only that she is safe. She will always be carefully guarded from all harm, and my cards will always tell me all I need know about mon petit garçon. No, your ladyship; I shall not go with you; I cannot leave the place where my poor Henry died."
"Poor Lisette! what a tender heart is yours!"
"Mine?" suddenly and with unusual energy interrupted Lisette. "Mine a tender heart? Ask this little lady here—who cannot tell a lie—if I am not the woman who has the hardest, the most unfeeling heart in all the world. Ask her that, your ladyship. Tell her, mon petit garçon," she added, turning to Marie,—"tell the lady it is as I say."
"Lisette—dear Lisette," remonstrated Marie.
"Have you ever seen me weep?" demanded the woman.
"No, Lisette; but—"
"Did I ever sigh," interrupted Lisette, "or moan, or grieve, that time when we spent many days and nights together in one room?"