lady's maid. No wonder women find service bitter.

We had retired from the breakfast room and were arranging our plans for
the day, when a sort of whirlwind came rushing through the hall, the
door sprang open almost without a pronounced permission, and Madame
F---- flung herself into the room, caught my hands in hers, pressed them
to her heart, to her lips, to her brow, wept in German, in French, in
English, and called distractedly upon "Himmel!" "Ciel!" and "Heaven!"
But she found her apologies so coldly received by my friends that she
was glad to turn the flood of her remorse in my direction, and for very
shame of the scene she was making I assured her the mistake was quite
pardonable--as it was. It was her manner that was almost unpardonable.
Then she added to my discomfort by bursting out with fulsome praise of
me as an actress; how she had seen me and wept, and so on and on, she
being only at last walked and talked gently out of the room.

But that was not the end of her remorse. A truly French bouquet with its
white paper petticoat arrived in about an hour, "From the so madly
mistooken Madame F----," the card read, and that act of penance was
performed every morning as long as I remained in Paris. But one day she
appealed to the Colonel for pity and sympathy.

"Ah!" said she, "I hav' zee two tr'ubles, zee two sorrows! I hav' zee
grief to vound zee feelin's of zat so fine actrice Americaine--zat ees
one tr'ubles, und den I hav' zee shame to mak' zat grande fool
meestak'--oh, mon Dieu! I tak' her for zee maid, und zare my most great
tr'uble come in! I hav' no one with zee right to keek me--to keek me
hard from zee back for being such a fool. I say mit my husband dat
night, 'Vill you keek me hard, if you pleas'?' Mais, he cannot, he hav'
zee gout in zee grande toe, und he can't keek vurth one sou!--und zat is