cook, and the still more important task of finding the means of
subsistence.

{entresol = mezzanine, low-ceilinged area between between the first
and second floors}

For quite a month the poor desolate girl contrived to provide for her
grandmother's necessities, by disposing of the different articles of the
trousseau. This store was now nearly exhausted, and she had found a
milliner who gave her a miserable pittance for toiling with her needle
eight or ten hours each day. Adrienne had not lost a moment, but had
begun this system of ill-requited industry long before her money was
exhausted. She foresaw that her grandmother must die, and the great
object of her present existence was to provide for the few remaining
wants of this only relative during the brief time she had yet to live, and to
give her decent and Christian burial. Of her own future lot, the poor girl
thought as little as possible, though fearful glimpses would obtrude
themselves on her uneasy imagination. At first she had employed a
physician; but her means could not pay for his visits, nor did the
situation of her grandmother render them very necessary. He promised
to call occasionally without fee, and, for a short time, he kept his word,
but his benevolence soon wearied of performing offices that really were
not required. By the end of a month, Adrienne saw him no more.

As long as her daily toil seemed to supply her own little wants, Adrienne
was content to watch on, weep on, pray on, in waiting for the moment
she so much dreaded; that which was to sever the last tie she appeared
to possess on earth. It is true she had a few very distant relatives, but
they had emigrated to America, at the commencement of the revolution
of 1789, and all trace of them had long been lost. In point of fact, the