“I have been thinking over those _jupons à traine_ that I ordered yesterday,” said Berthe to the pugnacious-looking little _lingère_, “and I have an idea that the _entre-deux anglais_ will be a failure. We ought to have decided on Valenciennes.”
“Ah! I thought Madame la Comtesse would come round to it!” observed Mademoiselle Florine with a smile of supreme satisfaction. “I told Madame la Comtesse it was a mistake.”
“Yes, I felt you didn’t approve; but really twelve hundred francs for six petticoats did seem a great deal,” observed Berthe deprecatingly. “Now, suppose we put alternately one row of deep _entre-deux_ and a _tuyauté de batiste_ edged with a narrow Valenciennes instead of all Valenciennes?”
“_Voyons--réfléchissons!_” said Mademoiselle Florine, putting her finger to her lips, and knitting her brow.
“It occurred to me in my bed last night,” continued Berthe, “and I fell asleep and actually dreamed of it, and you can’t think how pretty it looked, so light and at the same time _très garni_.”
“So much the better! Talk to me of a customer like that!” exclaimed Mademoiselle Florine, clasping her hands and turning to me with a look of admiration which was almost affecting from its earnestness. “There is some compensation in working for madame, at least. If those ladies knew what I have to endure from three-quarters of the world!” And she threw up her hands and shook her head in the direction of the _premier salon_. “But let me get out the models, and see how this dream of Madame la Comtesse’s looks in reality.” Boxes of lace and embroidery were ordered out by the excited _lingère_, and under her deft and nimble fingers the dream was illustrated in the course of a few minutes. Berthe was undecided. She sat down and surveyed the combination in silent perplexity.
“Really this question of _jupons_ makes life too complicated!” she said presently; “and now I begin to ask myself if these will go with any of my new dresses? The crinoline _éventail_ is going out, Monsieur Grandhomme told me, and they will never go with the _queue de moineau_ that he is bringing in!”
“_Attendez_,” said Florine, dropping a dozen _rouleaux_ of lace on the floor as if such costly rags, the mere mortar and clay of her airy architecture, were not worth a thought. “Let us leave the question of _jupons_ unsettled for a while; I will go myself this evening and discuss the toilettes of Madame la Comtesse with her _femme de chambre_; we will see the style and fall of the new skirts, and adapt the _jupons_ to them.”