"I am so bored!"
"I haven't a moment to myself during the day; such a lot of fine ladies come to bathe!"
"It's the same way here; but I am not allowed to wait on them."
"I wait on them; I dress them when they don't bring their servants, and that very often happens—they prefer to come alone; I don't know why—or rather, yes, I think that I can guess why."
"Oh! tell me, Ambroisine!"
"No, no, it isn't worth while! Besides, I am not sure; it is just an idea of mine."
"Tell me your idea, please, Ambroisine! Mon Dieu! if you don't tell me anything, if you don't teach me a little, how do you expect me to know anything, when I am always shut up in this room and only go downstairs to dinner; when I see nobody but my father and mother, who hardly ever speak to me? Why do the fine ladies prefer to come to the baths alone?"
"Why, you see, I do not quite know how to tell you.—But, no matter! what difference does it make, after all? Many cavaliers, young men, come to the baths also."
"So they do here, but I never see them. Do you see them?"
"Sometimes—when I go down to the shop, and when I help father; for I know how to shave, I do; I can shave very well when I set about it."