She composed herself at last, and drawing her chair close to that of
Mere Malheur, looked her inquiringly in the face and asked, "What is
the news?"
Dame Tremblay was endowed with more than the ordinary curiosity of
her sex. She knew more news of city and country than any one else,
and she dispensed it as freely as she gathered. She never let her
stock of gossip run low, and never allowed man or woman to come to
speak with her without pumping them dry of all they knew. A secret
in anybody's possession set her wild to possess it, and she gave no
rest to her inordinate curiosity until she had fished it out of even
the muddiest waters.
The mystery that hung around Caroline was a source of perpetual
irritation to the nerves of Dame Tremblay. She had tried as far as
she dared by hint and suggestion to draw from the lady some
reference to her name and family, but in vain. Caroline would avow
nothing, and Dame Tremblay, completely baffled by a failure of
ordinary means to find out the secret, bethought herself of her old
resource in case of perplexity, Mere Malheur.
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