"Oh! but I say, I am drinking too much; I'm beginning to be dizzy!"
In another instant, she assumed a sentimental expression.
"O my friend!" she said; "if I should be drunk, what would you say to me? You might not love me any more! That would make me very unhappy!"
But I kissed her and drank with her, and her fears were succeeded by bursts of merriment.
The more one drinks, the more one talks, unless one happens to be melancholy in one's cups, and my grisette was not so constituted.
While we dined, she told me her whole history; I knew her family as well as if I were her cousin. She was an orphan, but her seven aunts took care of her. It seemed to me that their watchfulness resembled that of the Seven Sleepers. That is one of the inconveniences of having too many aunts: each of them probably relied on the others to keep an eye on Rosette.
Now her aunts wanted her to marry, and each one had a match in view for her; the result being that there were seven aspirants for the hand of my friend, who reminded me of the Seven Children of Lara. Thus Mademoiselle Rosette had only too many to choose from, to say nothing of the fact that she had several young men who were paying court to her, for the good motive, without the knowledge of her aunts.
"Perhaps you don't believe me! But I'll show you; I always have letters from some of my suitors in my pocket. I want you to read them; they'll make you laugh."
And Rosette set about emptying her pockets, which led us to the disclosure of a multitude of things, such as scissors, skeins of cotton, crusts of bread, visiting cards, copper coins, barley sugar, ribbons, braid, chalk, specimens of dry goods, orange peel, etc., etc. I told her that she should empty her pockets on the boulevard and shout:
"Here's what's left from the sale! Come, messieurs and mesdames, take your choice; this is what's left from the sale!"