Mademoiselle Aglae took
charge - I may say, possession - of me.
She was tall, gaunt,
and bony, with a sharp aquiline nose, pomegranate cheek-
bones, and large saffron teeth ever much in evidence. Her
speciality, as I soon discovered, was sentiment. Like her
sisters, she had had her 'affaires' in the plural. A Greek
prince, so far as I could make out, was the last of her
adorers. But I sometimes got into scrapes by mixing up the
Greek prince with a Polish count, and then confounding either
one or both with a Hungarian pianoforte player.
Without formulating my deductions, I came instinctively to
the conclusion that 'En fait d'amour,' as Figaro puts it,
'trop n'est pas meme assez.' From Miss Aglae's point of view
a lover was a lover. As to the superiority of one over
another, this was - nay, is - purely subjective. 'We receive
but what we give.' And, from what Mademoiselle then told me,
I cannot but infer that she had given without stint.
Be that as it may, nothing could be more kind than her care
of me. She tucked me up at night, and used to send for me in
the morning before she rose, to partake of her CAFE-AU-LAIT.
In return for her indulgences, I would 'make eyes' such as I
had seen Auguste, the young man-servant, cast at Rose the
cook. I would present her with little scraps which I copied
in roundhand from a volume of French poems.
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