"I don't know what 'Sapristie' means, mamma; but the Baron asked Madame what she was doing here? and Madame said, 'And you, Chicot, you are no more a general at Franco.' Have I not translated rightly, Madame?"
"Oui, mon chou, mon ange; yase, my angel, my cabbage, quite right. Figure yourself, I have known my dear Chicot dis twenty years."
"Chicot is my name of baptism," says the Baron; "Baron Chicot de Punter is my name." "And, being a general at Franco," says Jemmy, "means, I suppose, being a French General?"
"Yes, I vas," said he, "General Baron de Punter, n'est il pas, Aménaïde?"
"O, yes!" said Madame Flicflac, and laughed; and I and Jemmy laughed out of politeness: and a pretty laughing matter it was, as you shall hear.
About this time my Jemmy became one of the Ladies-Patronesses of that admirable Institution, "The Washerwoman's Orphans' Home;" Lady de Sudley was the great projector of it; and the manager and chaplain, the excellent and Reverend Sidney Slopper. His salary, as chaplain, and that of Doctor Leitch, the physician (both cousins of her Ladyship's), drew away five hundred pounds from the six subscribed to the Charity: and Lady de Sudley thought a fête at Beulah Spa, with the aid of some of the foreign Princes who were in town last year, might bring a little more money into its treasury. A tender appeal was accordingly drawn up, and published in all the papers:
"APPEAL.
"BRITISH WASHERWOMAN'S ORPHANS' HOME.
"The 'Washerwoman's Orphans' Home' has now been established seven years; and the good which it has effected is, it may be confidently stated, incalculable. Ninety-eight orphan children of washerwomen have been lodged within its walls. One hundred and two British washerwomen have been relieved when in the last state of decay. One hundred and ninety-eight thousand articles of male and female dress have been washed, mended, buttoned, ironed, and mangled, in the Establishment. And, by an arrangement with the governors of the Foundling, it is hoped that the Baby-linen of that Hospital will be confided to the British Washerwoman's Home!
"With such prospects before it, is it not sad, is it not lamentable to think, that the Patronesses of the Society have been compelled to reject the applications of no less than three thousand eight hundred and one British Washerwomen, from lack of means for their support? Ladies of England! Mothers of England! to you we appeal. Is there one of you that will not respond to the cry in behalf of these deserving members of our sex?