"There not enough of that. And I choose to have fresh, I do."

"Well, you had better give your own orders about it," said Mary Tynn.
"And then, if there's any mistake, it'll be nobody's fault, you know."

Mademoiselle Benoite did not on the instant reply. She had her hands
full just then. In reaching over for a particular bonnet, she managed to
turn a dozen or two on to the floor. Tynn watched the picking up
process, and listened to the various ejaculations that accompanied it,
in much grimness.

"What a sight of money those things must have cost!" cried she.

"What that matter?" returned the lady's-maid. "The purse of a milor
Anglais can stand anything."

"What did she buy them for?" went on Tynn. "For what purpose?"

"_Bon!_" ejaculated Mademoiselle. "She buy them to wear. What else you
suppose she buy them for?"

"Why! she would never wear out the half of them in all her whole life!"
uttered Tynn, speaking the true sentiments of her heart. "She could
not."

"Much you know of things, Madame Teen!" was the answer, delivered in
undisguised contempt for Tynn's primitive ignorance. "They'll not last
her six months."

"Six months!" shrieked Tynn. "She couldn't come to an end of them
dresses in six months, if she wore three a day, and never put on a dress
a second time!"

"She want to wear more than three different a day sometimes. And it not
the mode now to put on a robe more than once," returned Mademoiselle
Benoite carelessly.

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, Phoeby 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