Lady Lucy's Secret - Page 2

mirror so closely; and now, though the tears were dried, she was shocked at the lines of anguish--those delvers of the wrinkles of age--which marked her countenance. She sat before her looking-glass, one hand supporting her head, the other clutching the hidden letters which she had not yet the courage to open. There was a light tap at the door.

"Who is there?" inquired Lady Lucy.

"It is I, my lady," replied Harris, her faithful maid. "Madame Dalmas is here."

Lady Lucy unlocked the door and gave orders that the visiter should be shown up. With the name had come a flush of hope that some trifling temporary help would be hers. Madame Dalmas called herself a Frenchwoman, and signed herself "Antoinette" but she was really an English Jewess of low extraction, whose true name was Sarah Solomons. Her "profession" was to purchase--and sell--the cast-off apparel of ladies of fashion; and few of the sisterhood have carried the art of double cheating to so great a proficiency. With always a roll of bank-notes in her old leather pocket-book, and always a dirty canvass bag full of bright sovereigns in her pocket, she had ever the subtle temptation for her victims ready.

Madame Dalmas--for she must be called according to the name engraved on her card--was a little meanly-dressed woman of about forty, with bright eyes and a hooked nose, a restless shuffling manner, and an ill-pitched voice. Her jargon was a mixture of bad French and worse English.

"Bon jour, miladi Lucy," she exclaimed as she entered Lady Lucy's sanctum; "need not inquire of health, you look si charmante. Oh, si belle!--that make you wear old clothes so longer dan oder ladies, and have so leetel for me to buy. Milady Lucy Ferrars know she look well in anyting, but yet she should not wear old clothes: no right--for example--for de trade, and de hoosband always like de wife well dressed--ha--ha!"

Poor Lady Lucy! Too sick at heart to have any relish for Madame Dalmas' nauseous compliments, and more than half aware of her cheats and falsehoods, she yet tolerated the creature from her own dire necessities.

"Sit down, Madame Dalmas," she said, "I am dreadfully in want of money; but I really don't know what I have for you."

"De green velvet, which you not let me have before Easter, I still give you four pounds for it, though perhaps you worn it very much since then."

"Only twice--only seven times in all--and it cost me twenty guineas," sighed Lady Lucy.

"Ah, but so old-fashioned--I do believe I not see my money for it. Voyez-vous, de Lady Lucy is one petite lady--si jolie, mais tres petite. If she were de tall grand lady, you see de great dresses could fit small lady, but de leetle dresses fit but ver few."

"If I sell the green velvet I must have another next