Tynn could only open her mouth. "If they are to be put on but once, what becomes of 'em afterwards?" questioned she, when she could find breath to speak.
"Oh, they good for jupons—petticoats, you call it. Some may be worn a second time; they can be changed by other trimmings to look like new. And the rest will be good for me: Madame la Duchesse gave me a great deal. 'Tenez, ma fille,' she would say, 'regardez dans ma garde-robe, et prenez autant que vous voudrez.' She always spoke to me in French."
Tynn wished there had been no French invented, so far as her comprehension was concerned. While she stood, undecided what reply to make, wishing very much to express her decided opinion upon the extravagance she saw around her, yet deterred from it by remembering that Mrs. Verner was now her mistress, Ph[oe]by entered with the chocolate. The girl put it down on the mantel-piece—there was no other place—and then made a sign to Mrs. Tynn that she wished to speak with her. They both left the room.
"Am I to be at the beck and call of that French madmizel?" she resentfully asked. "I was not engaged for that, Mrs. Tynn."
"It seems we are all to be at her beck and call, to hear her go on," was Mrs. Tynn's wrathful rejoinder. "Of course it can't be tolerated. We shall see in a day or two. Ph[oe]by, girl, what could possess Mrs. Verner to buy all them cart-loads of finery? She must have spent the money like water."
"So she did," acquiesced Ph[oe]by. "She did nothing all day long but drive about from one place to another and choose pretty things. You should see the china that's coming over!"
"I wonder Mr. Lionel let her," was the thoughtlessly-spoken remark of Tynn. And she tried, when too late, to cough it down.
"He helped her, I think," answered Ph[oe]by. "I know he bought some of that beautiful jewellery for her himself, and brought it home. I saw him kiss her, through the doorway, as he clasped that pink necklace on her neck."
"Oh, well, I don't want to hear about that rubbish," tartly rejoined Tynn. "If you take to peep through doorways, girl, you won't suit Verner's Pride."
Ph[oe]by did not like the rebuff. She turned one way, and Mrs. Tynn went off another.