Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/148

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148
LIVE AND LET LIVE.

mind, I am but a passenger.' Madame cannot live without French cooking. American cooking is for the brutes, not for ladies. If madame could only persuade Mr. Hartell to return to Paris—"

"Ah, Adéle, if I could! Dear Paris! I shall never go there till I go to heaven. Mr. Hartell makes a point of never going where I wish—he says, if he goes again to Paris, he shall go without me."

"The savage! a thousand pardons, madame! But how can any one say or do anything unkind to such an angel as madame! One thing is sure, Mr. Hartell adores Monsieur Eugene. He will not go to Paris without you, and leave him."

"Well thought of, Adéle! and, by-the-way, Mr. Hartell has taken it into his head that Eugene is getting pale, and he puts all the fault upon you, for he says the wet-nurse told him the only reason she went away was because she would not live with you, and she called you a bag of lies and pretences."

"The Irish savage! The Irish are all savages—all false and cruel."

"Margery was good to Eugene, though."

"Certainly, madame—before your eyes and Mr. Hartell's."

Mrs. Hartell was not ashamed to laugh at Adéle's insinuation against a faithful and warm-hearted creature, who, during a long illness, had watched all night with her child, and carried him all day in her arms, and whom Mrs. Hartell had finally sacrificed to her favourite. "I wish, Adéle," resumed Mrs. Hartell, "you had borne with Margery a