“Now, Emily, say no more,” said Lucy entreatingly, “and I’ll do any thing you want.”
“Well, the carriage has been waiting this half hour,” said her sister. “Do you come back to dinner,” said she to her brother-in-law, “for I mean to keep Lucy to-day, and then we will settle this evening about Bully’s head and ears, &c.”
So they drove to Madame Dudevant’s. Emily gave a rapid sketch of the character her sister was to take, which the Frenchwoman caught with a tact and quickness that would have been enough to make a slow, sober Englishwoman think she had been a reader of Shakspeare from her youth.
“Ah, I understand—something very light and pretty; two, tree tunics—a light broderie on each.”
“Would not a little silver lace,” said Mrs. Coolidge, looking anxious, “do, madame?”
“Silver lace?” said the Frenchwoman interrogatively. “What you call silver lace, madame? You like tinsel?” with a shrug of such ineffable contempt, that Lucy colored spite of herself.
“A light embroidery would be much handsomer, Lucy,” said Emily. “I don’t like silver lace myself, it has a sort of livery look.”
“Just so,” said the queen of mantua-makers, now directing her remarks to Emily, “what you call vulgar. If madame will have tree tunics with a delicat broderie, de sleeve de same, I have a young woman who work beautiful—”
Lucy looked distressed, and said, “I don’t want to go to much expense, madame.”
“Expense! oh no, madame, it so light it cost noting at all.”