"
"Yours ever, CLARA."
She gave this missive to her maid, Louise Renaud, to post,--that
faithful attendant took it first to her own apartment where she ungummed
the envelope neatly by the aid of hot water, and read every word of it.
This was not an exceptional action of hers,--all the letters received
and sent by her mistress were subjected to the same process,--even those
that were sealed with wax she had a means of opening in such a manner
that it was impossible to detect that they had been tampered with.
She was a very clever French maid was Louise,--one of the cleverest of
her class. Fond of mischief, ever suspicious, always on the alert for
evil, utterly unscrupulous and malicious, she was an altogether
admirable attendant for a lady of rank and fashion, her skill as a
_coiffeur_ and needle-woman always obtaining for her the wages she so
justly deserved. When will wealthy women reared in idleness and luxury
learn the folly of keeping a trained spy attached to their persons?--a
spy whose pretended calling is merely to arrange dresses and fripperies
(half of which she invariably steals), but whose real delight is to take
note of all her mistress's incomings and outgoings, tempers and
tears--to watch her looks, her smiles and frowns,--and to start
scandalous gossip concerning her in the servants' hall, from whence it
gradually spreads to the society newspapers--for do you think these
estimable and popular journals are never indebted for their "reliable"
information to the "honest" statements of discharged footman or valet?
Briggs, for instance, had tried his hand at a paragraph or two
concerning the "Upper Ten," and with the aid of a dictionary, had
succeeded in expressing himself quite smartly, though in ordinary
conversation his h's were often lacking or superfluous, and his grammar
doubtful.
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