She put out her feet toward Germinie, who was kneeling in front of the fireplace, and laughingly placed them under her nose: "Do you know that that takes no small amount of philosophy--to wear stockings out at heel! Simpleton! I'm not scolding you; I know well enough that you can't do everything. So you might as well have a woman come to do the mending. That's not very much to do. Why don't you speak to that little girl that came here last year? She had a face that I remember." "Oh! she's black as a mole, mademoiselle." "Bah! I knew it. In the first place you never think well of anybody. That isn't true, you say? Why, wasn't she a niece of Mere Jupillon's? We might take her for one or two days a week." "That hussy shall never set foot here." "Nonsense, more fables! You're a most astonishing creature, to adore people and then not want to see them again. What has she done to you?" "She's a lost creature, I tell you!" "Bah! what does my linen care for that?" "But, mademoiselle." "All right! find me someone else then. I don't care about her particularly. But find me someone." "Oh! the women that come in like that don't do any work. I'll mend your clothes. You don't need any one." "You!--Oh! if we have to rely on your needle!" said mademoiselle jocosely; "and then, will Mere Jupillon ever give you the time?" "Madame Jupillon? Oh! for all the dust I shall ever leave in her house again!" "Hoity-toity! What's that? She too! so she's on your black books, is she? Oho! hurry up and make another acquaintance, or else, _bon Dieu de Dieu_! we shall have some bad days here!" XXVIII The winter of that year should certainly have assured Mademoiselle de Varandeuil a share of paradise hereafter. She had to undergo the reflex action of her maid's chagrin, her nervous irritability, the vengeance of her embittered, contradictory moods, which the approaching spring would ere long infect with that species of malignant madness which the critical season, the travail of nature and the restless, disturbing fructification of the summer cause in unhealthily sensitive organizations.