Read "A Little Maid of Picardy" by Amy Ella Blanchard online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Probably no quarter of the city could have suited Lucie and Paulette better than the one to which good fortune guided them. Paulette, while always declaring that she hated Paris and that she counted the days till she could again return to her own home, nevertheless soon became accustomed to the neighborhood and hobnobbed with dames of her own degree, becoming as canny a _femme de ménage_ as any, doing her marketing with an eye to the main chance and learning where one could best shop for this or that commodity. With her usual good sense she had looked for work of such kind as she could best do, and was engaged by two families to do a certain amount of work, buy the food and cook the midday meal, this employment occupying only her mornings, so that Lucie would not be left alone the entire day.
Many were the charges given to the little girl when Paulette went off to her work. She was not to leave the room on any pretext. She was not to open to any one. She was not to play with fire.