Mam’selle Diane’s sad, grave face lighted up a little as she led the child to a table near the side window, which was covered with pieces of colored flannel, sticks of sealing-wax, and bunches of soft yellow wool. In this table was a drawer which she drew out carefully, and there on little scalloped flannel mats of various colors sat a number of small yellow downy ducklings.
“Oh, oh!” exclaimed Lady Jane, not able to find other words at the moment to express her wonder and delight.
“Would you like to hold one?” asked Mam’selle Diane, taking one out.
Lady Jane held out her pink palm, and rapturously smoothed down its little woolly back with her soft fingers. “Oh, how pretty, how pretty!” she repeated in a half-suppressed tone.
“Yes, I think they are rather pretty,” said Mam’selle Diane modestly, “but then they are so useful.”
“What are they for?” asked Lady Jane in surprise; she could not think they were made for any other purpose than for ornament.
“They are pen-wipers, my dear. You see, the pen is wiped with the little cloth mat they are sitting on.”
Yes, they were pen-wipers; Mademoiselle Diane d’Hautreve, granddaughter of the Count d’Hautreve, made little woolen ducklings for pen-wipers, and sold them quite secretly to Madame Jourdain, on the Rue Royale, in order to have bread for her aged mother and herself.
Lady Jane unknowingly had solved the financial mystery connected with the d’Hautreve ladies, and at the same time she had made another valuable friend for herself.