to wait on you. You
will come with us, will you not?"

"I thank your ladyship; but I had rather stay where I am."

"But why?"

"Because I should be a trouble to everybody over yonder. I am a person
that suits only herself. I don't know how to win the good will of other
people. I don't keep a cat or a dog, because I don't want to love
anything. Besides, I have many disagreeable habits. I use snuff, and I
can't agree with anybody. I am best left to myself, your ladyship."

"But what will become of you when both your master and mistress are gone
from the castle?"

"I shall do what I have always done, your ladyship. The Herr Count
promised that I should never want for anything to cook so long as I
lived."

"Don't misunderstand me, Lisette. I did not ask how you intended to
live. What I meant was, how are you going to get on when you do not see
or hear any one--when you are all alone here?"

"I am not afraid to be alone. I have no money, and I don't think anybody
would undertake to carry _me_ off! I am never lonely. I can't read,--for
which I thank God!--so that never bothers me. I don't like to knit; for
ever since I saw those terrible women sitting around the guillotine and
knitting, knitting, knitting all day long, I can't bear to see the
motion of five needles. So I just amuse myself with these cards; and I
don't need anything else."

"But surely your heart will grow sore when you do not see your little
mistress daily?"

"Daily--daily, your ladyship? This is the second time I have laid eyes
on her face in six years! There was a time when I saw her daily,
hourly--when she needed me all the time. Is not that so, my little
mistress? Don't you remember how I had a little son, and how he called
me _chere maman_, and I called him _mon petit garcon_?"

As she spoke, she laid the cards one by one on her snowy apron. She
looked intently at them for several moments, then continued:

"No; I don't need to know anything, only that she is safe. _She_ will
always be carefully guarded from all harm, and my cards will always tell
me all I need know about _mon petit garcon_. No, your ladyship; I shall
not go with you; I cannot leave the place where my poor Henry died."

"Poor Lisette! what a tender heart is yours!"

"Mine?" suddenly and with unusual energy interrupted Lisette. "Mine a
tender heart? Ask this little lady here--who cannot tell a lie--if I am
not the woman who has the hardest, the most unfeeling heart in all