"Quelle peste que cette Desiree! Quel poison que cet enfant la!" were the expressions dedicated to her, alike in kitchen and in schoolroom.

Amongst her other endowments she boasted an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes driving her _bonne_ and the servants almost wild.

She would steal to their attics, open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their best caps and soil their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity to get at the buffet of the salle-a-manger, where she would smash articles of porcelain or glass--or to the cupboard of the storeroom, where she would plunder the preserves, drink the sweet wine, break jars and bottles, and so contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on the cook and the kitchen-maid.

All this when Madame saw, and of which when she received report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless serenity, was: "Desiree a besoin d'une surveillance toute particuliere." Accordingly she kept this promising olive-branch a good deal at her side.

Never once, I believe, did she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain the evil of such habits, and show the results which must thence ensue.
Surveillance must work the whole cure.