"No one knows how my boy loves me," sighed the dreaming voice. "No one in all the world! How should he tire? Love can never tire!"
Meanwhile, Lady Winsleigh, in the seclusion of her own boudoir, penned a brief note to Sir Francis Lennox as follows-"DEAR OLD LENNIE," "I saw you in the stalls at the theatre this evening, though you pretended not to see me. What a fickle creature you are! not that I mind in the very least. The virtuous Bruce-Errington left his saintly wife and me to talk little platitudes together, while he, decorously accompanied by his secretary, went down to pay court to Violet Vere. How stout she is getting! Why don't you men advise her to diet herself? I know you also went behind the scenes--of course, you are an ami intime--promising boy you are, to be sure! Come and lunch with me to-morrow, if you're not too lazy."
"Yours ever, CLARA."
She gave this missive to her maid, Louise Rénaud, 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. Whether he persuaded any editor to accept his literary efforts is quite another matter--a question to which the answer must remain for ever enveloped in mystery,--but if he did appear in print (it is only an if!) he must have been immensely gratified to consider that his statements were received with gusto by at least half aristocratic London, and implicitly believed as having emanated from the "best authorities." And Louise Rénaud having posted her mistress's letter at last, went down to visit Briggs in his private pantry, and to ask him a question.