angry, spoke pettishly, and manifested her selfishness without the slightest restraint of good manners, turning over the toast to get the best buttered bits, pouring off all the clear coffee, and appropriating the only egg to herself. Before the breakfast was finished the baby cried, and Adéle directed Lucy to take the little angel up and make it quiet, adding, "that it hurt her digestion to be disturbed at her meals!"
Lucy obeyed. The "little angel" proved to be a stout boy of ten months, in a most impish humour, and, in spite of the kind instincts of her nature, that led her always to care for and caress children, she was tired resisting its struggling and screaming before Adéle was ready to take it. Miss Ophelia and her sister had gone to their French school. Eugene, the baby, was exquisitely dressed; no one could deny Adéle's perfection in every department of the toilet. Lucy had arranged the nursery, and was sitting at her needlework, when Mrs. Hartell made her appearance. She was a tall and handsome woman, of about thirty, but her beauty was impaired by paleness and langour, and powerless from the absence of all expression. Her air of high fashion, or perhaps her extreme coldness and indifference, appalled our modest heroine; and after the first glance she did not again raise her eyes to the lady's face, and her ears gave her no information as to the character of her new mistress; for her languid endearments to her baby, her more animated admiration of its new French dress, and her conversation with Adéle, was all in French. We shall take the liberty to translate it, omitting the expletives with which both mistress and maid
