"Prends garde d'abimer mon chapeau, p'tite tante," cried Henriette, "'tis
one of Lewin's Nell Gwyn hats, and cost twenty guineas, without the buckle,
which I stole out of father's shoe t'other day. His lordship is so careless
about his clothes that he wore the shoes two days and never knew there was
a buckle missing, and those lazy devils his servants never told him. I
believe they meant to rook him of t'other buckle."
"Chatterer, chatterer, how happy I am to see thee! But is not your mother
with you?"
"Her ladyship is in London. Everybody of importance is scampering off to
London; and no doubt will be rushing back to the country again if the Dutch
take the Tower; but I don't think they will while my father is able to
raise a regiment."
"And mademoiselle"--with a curtsy to the lady in grey--"has brought you all
this long way through the heat to see me?"
"I have brought mademoiselle," Henrietta answered contemptuously, before
the Frenchwoman had finished the moue and the shrug which with her always
preceded speech; "and a fine plague I had to make her come."
"Madame will conceive that, in miladi's absence, it was a prodigious
inconvenience to order two coaches, and travel so far.
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