The dressmakers were hard at work, the mother cutting and the daughter
sewing, but, as progress could not be too rapid, I told the mother that
she would oblige us if she could procure another seamstress who spoke
French.

"You shall have one this very day, sir," she answered, and she offered me
the services of her own son as a servant, saying that if I took him I
should be certain to have neither a thief nor a spy about me, and that he
spoke French pretty well. Henriette thought we could not do better than
take the young man. Of course that was enough to make me consent at once,
for the slightest wish of the woman we love is our supreme law. The
mother went for him, and she brought back at the same time the
half-French dressmaker. It all amused my goddess, who looked very happy.

The young man was about eighteen, pleasant, gentle and modest. I enquired
his name, and he answered that it was Caudagna.

The reader may very likely recollect that my father's native place had
been Parma, and that one of his sisters had married a Caudagna. "It would
be a curious coincidence," I thought, "if that dressmaker should be my
aunt, and my valet my cousin!" but I did not say it aloud.

Henriette asked me if I had any objection to the first dressmaker dining
at our table.

"I entreat you, my darling," I answered, "never, for the future, to ask
my consent in such trifling matters. Be quite certain, my beloved, that I
shall always approve everything you may do."

She smiled and thanked me. I took out my purse, and said to her;