They never
can. The baroness and the Demoiselles de Beaurepaire--are paupers."
"Paupers, Jacintha?"
"Ay, paupers! their debts are greater than their means. They live here
by sufferance. They have only their old clothes to wear. They have
hardly enough to eat. Just now our cow is in full milk, you know; so
that is a great help: but, when she goes dry, Heaven knows what we shall
do; for I don't. But that is not the worst; better a light meal than a
broken heart. Your precious government offers the chateau for sale.
They might as well send for the guillotine at once, and cut off all our
heads. You don't know my mistress as I do. Ah, butchers, you will drag
nothing out of that but her corpse. And is it come to this? the great
old family to be turned adrift like beggars. My poor mistress! my pretty
demoiselles that I played with and nursed ever since I was a child! (I
was just six when Josephine was born) and that I shall love with my last
breath"--
She could say no more, but choked by the strong feeling so long pent up
in her own bosom, fell to sobbing hysterically, and trembling like one
in an ague.
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