“Things common in France mayn’t be common with us,” retorted Mrs. Tynn.  “What is it for?”

“It is for some of these articles.  If I put them by without the paper-silk round them in the cartons, they’ll not keep their colour.”

“Perhaps you mean silver-paper,” said Mary Tynn.  “Tissue-paper, I have heard my Lady Verner call it.  There’s none in the house, Madmisel Bennot.”

“Madmisel Bennot” stamped her foot.  “A house without silk-paper in it!  When you knew my lady was coming home!”

“I didn’t know she’d bring—­a host of things with her that she has brought,” was the answering shaft lanced by Mrs. Tynn.

“Don’t you see that I am waiting?  Will you send out for some?”

“It’s not to be had in Deerham,” said Mrs. Tynn.  “If it must be had, one of the men must go to Heartburg.  Why won’t the paper do that was over ’em before?”

“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.”