As for Mademoiselle Trampoline, her French maid, she would stare the sun
itself out of countenance. One day she tossed up her head as she passed
under our windows with a look of scorn that drove Miss Clapperclaw back
to the fireplace again.

It was Mrs. Stafford Molyneux's children, however, whom I pitied the
most. Once her boy, in a flaring tartan, went up to speak to Master
Roderick Lacy, whose maid was engaged ogling a policeman; and the
children were going to make friends, being united with a hoop which
Master Molyneux had, when Master Roderick's maid, rushing up, clutched
her charge to her arms, and hurried away, leaving little Molyneux sad
and wondering.

"Why won't he play with me, mamma?" Master Molyneux asked--and his
mother's face blushed purple as she walked away.

"Ah--heaven help us and forgive us!" said I; but Miss C. can never
forgive the mother or child; and she clapped her hands for joy one day
when we saw the shutters up, bills in the windows, a carpet hanging out
over the balcony, and a crowd of shabby Jews about the steps--giving
token that the reign of Mrs. Stafford Molyneux was over. The
pastry-cooks and their trays, the bay and the gray, the brougham and the
groom, the noblemen and their cabs, were all gone; and the tradesmen in
the neighborhood were crying out that they were done.

"Serve the odious minx right!" says Miss C.; and she played at piquet
that night with more vigor than I have known her manifest for these last
ten years.