There, go, my pretty
Lucrece; but if your milliner or your shoemaker is pressing, there are a
few jacobuses in the right-hand drawer of yonder escritoire, and you may
as well take them as leave them for my valet to steal. He is one of those
excellent old servants who make no distinctions, and he robs me as freely
as he robbed my father before me."
"Mrs. Lewin is always pressing," sighed Lady Lucretia. "She made me a gown
like that of Lady Fareham's, for which you were all eyes. I ordered
the brocade to please you; and now I am wearing it when you are not at
Whitehall. Well, as you are so kind, I will be your debtor for another
trifling loan. It is wicked to leave money where it tempts a good servant
to dishonesty. Ah, Henri"--she was pocketing the gold as she talked--"if
ten years of my life could save you ten days of pain and fever, how gladly
would I give them to you!"
"Ah, douce, if there were a market for the exchange of such commodities,
what a roaring trade would be done there! I never loved a woman yet but she
offered me her life, or an instalment of it."
"I have emptied your drawer," laughing coyly. "There is just enough to keep
Lewin in good humour till you are well again, and we can be partners at
basset.
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