ither,
'Heavens, how stupid! Of course--it was a Friday!' That is the kind
of party we are. If you wouldn't mind sending us word what day of the
week you believe it to have been, you will save us a great deal of
discomfort." The stage is the brisker for the coming in of this pretty
_soubrette_.

Madame de Sevigne, meantime, is in a discomfort of her own. It takes
her some ten days to absorb the _petite personne_, but then she fixes
her for ever. Nobody can wish to know more about a young party than
this:

"_Christmas Day_ (1675).... I still have that nice child here.
She lives on the other side of the park; her mother is the
good-wife Marcile's daughter--but you won't remember her. The
mother lives at Rennes, but I shall keep her here. She plays
_trictrac, reversis;_ she is quite pretty, quite innocent, and
called Jeannette. She is no more trouble than Fidele."

Quite pretty, quite innocent and called Jeannette! _Quid Plura?_ Need
I say who Fidele was? Fidele is a shrewd touch of Madame's, put in,
as I guess, to placate the hungry-eyed Goddess of Grignan; but it
does clinch the portrait. All that one needs to know of the nature,
parentage, and upbringing of a _petite personne_ is in these two
letters.

Immediately upon her entry the comedy begins, with Mademoiselle du
Plessis in a leading part. "... La Plessis has a quartan fever. It is
pretty to see her jealous fury when she comes here and finds the
child with me. The fuss there is to have my stick or muff to hold! But
enough of these nothings...."

It was of nothings that the vexed days of Mlle. du Plessis must exist.
An elderly virgin, evidently; stiff, gauche, full of _guinderie_, says
Madame, "_et de l'esprit fichu_." Everybody made game of her at Les
Rochers. As we shall see, the servants knew that very well. Charles is
always witty at her expense. Madame de Grignan once slapped her.

Meanwhile, here's another vignette, a Chardin picture--you will find
nothing by Greuze of this _petite personne_. "... What do you think
of the handy little lady we were telling you of, who couldn't make out
what the day after Easter Eve was? She is a dear little rosebud of a
thing who delights us."

"'In six years to come she'll be twenty years old!' I wish you could
see her in the mornings, eating a hunk of bread-and-butter as long as
from here to Easter, or, after dinner, crunching up two green apples
with brown bread...."

But now the clowns co