With her youthful prepossession for her friends, this
distinction she regarded as flattering and aristocratic, and I fear she
accented it still more by discussing with Mrs. Randolph the merits
of the shopkeepers' wares in schoolgirl French before them. She was
unfortunate enough, however, to do this in the shop of a polyglot
German.
"Oxcoos me, mees," he said gravely,--"but dot lady speeks Engeleesh so
goot mit yourselluf, and ven you dells to her dot silk is hallf gotton
in English, she onderstand you mooch better, and it don't make nodings
to me." The laugh which would have followed from her own countrywomen
did not, however, break upon the trained faces of the "de Fontanges
l'Hommadieus," yet while Rose would have joined in it, albeit a
little ruefully, she felt for the first time mortified at their civil
insincerity.
At the end of two weeks, Major Randolph received a letter from Mr.
Mallory. When he had read it, he turned to his wife: "He thanks you," he
said, "for your kindness to his daughter, and explains that his sudden
departure was owing to the necessity of his taking advantage of a great
opportunity for speculation that had offered.
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