Page:Adventures of Susan Hopley (Volume 1).pdf/320

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SUSAN HOPLEY.
305

part, she preferred making her début by candlelight. As soon, however, as the dusk of the evening gave her confidence, manfully she sallied forth, and took her way towards the cabaret. to which she had followed the stranger the night before.

"'Peut on entrer?' said she stepping in to a small room or kitchen on the right of the passage, the door of which was ajar, and from which voices were heard to proceed—'peut on entrer?' and she took off her hat with a boyish grace that gave good earnest of her abilities for the part she had undertaken.

"'Entrez donc, mon beau monsieur,' said a withered, haggish looking old woman, with an array of wrinkles that none but an old Frenchwoman could show, who sat knitting on one side of the large, open chimney, where a brisk wood fire was burning on the hearth; 'entrez donc.' 'It rains like the devil,' said Julie, shaking the rain from her hat, considering the devil as part of her 'stage directions.'

"'Make a corner for the youth,' said the old woman to those who sat round the fire—'don't you see he is dripping?'

"The seats were pushed a little aside, and a chair drawn forward for Julie, who had now an