Mrs. Bread dropped her eyes and hesitated. "If I were a foreigner,
sir, I should make less of telling you; it comes harder to a decent
Englishwoman. But I sometimes think I have picked up too many foreign
ways. What I was telling you belongs to a time when I was much younger
and very different looking to what I am now. I had a very high color,
sir, if you can believe it, indeed I was a very smart lass. My lady was
younger, too, and the late marquis was youngest of all--I mean in the
way he went on, sir; he had a very high spirit; he was a magnificent
man. He was fond of his pleasure, like most foreigners, and it must be
owned that he sometimes went rather below him to take it. My lady was
often jealous, and, if you'll believe it, sir, she did me the honor to
be jealous of me. One day I had a red ribbon in my cap, and my lady flew
out at me and ordered me to take it off. She accused me of putting it on
to make the marquis look at me. I don't know that I was impertinent, but
I spoke up like an honest girl and didn't count my words. A red ribbon
indeed! As if it was my ribbons the marquis looked at! My lady knew
afterwards that I was perfectly respectable, but she never said a word
to show that she believed it. But the marquis did!" Mrs. Bread presently
added, "I took off my red ribbon and put it away in a drawer, where I
have kept it to this day.
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