communication from these distinctively named solicitors on the evening of
the very day on which they advertised concerning a young woman named
Sofia!--when the letter was snatched out of her hand, a torrent of
objurgation was loosed upon her devoted head, and she looked into the black
scowl of the Frenchwoman.

"Sneak! Spying little cat! How dare you pry into my letters?"

"But, Mama Thérèse--!"

"Be still, you! Has one asked you to speak? Give me those others"--Mama
Thérèse with a vast show of violence appropriated them from Sofia's
unresisting grasp--"and after this keep your nose of a mouchard out of what
doesn't concern you!"

"But, Mama Thérèse!--"

"Hold your tongue. I wish to hear nothing from you, I hear too much--yes,
and see too much, too! Oh, don't flatter yourself I am like that fat dolt
of a Dupont, to be taken in by a pair of round eyes and innocent ways. I
know your sort, I know _you_, mam'selle, too well! Me, I am nobody's fool,
least of all yours, young woman. What goes on under my nose, I see; and if
you imagine otherwise you are a bigger simpleton that you take me for."

She snapped her fingers viciously in Sofia's crimsoned face, uttered a
contemptuous "_Zut_!" and waddled off, shaking her head and growling to
herself.

Sofia felt stunned. The offensive had been launched so swiftly, she was
conscious of having done so little to invite it, she had been taken