France had paid spies among the English,
some said. Deliverance Dobbins, a frumpish, fizgig of a maid, ever
complaining of bodily ills though her chuffy cheeks were red as
pippins, reported that one day when she had gone for simples she had
seen strange, dead things in the jars of M. Picot's dispensary. At
this I laughed as Rebecca told it me, and old Tibbie winked behind the
little Puritan maid's head; for my father, like the princes, had known
that love of the new sciences which became a passion among gentlemen.
Had I not noticed the mole on the French doctor's cheek? Rebecca asked.
I had: what of it?
"The crops have been blighted," says Rebecca; though what connection
that had with M. Picot's mole, I could not see.
"Deliverance Dobbins oft hath racking pains," says Rebecca, with that
air of injury which became her demure dimples so well.
"Drat that Deliverance Dobbins for a low-bred mongrel mischief-maker!"
cries old Tibbie from the pantry door.
"Tibbie," I order, "hold your tongue and drop an angel in the blasphemy
box."
"'Twas good coin wasted," the old nurse vowed; but I must needs put
some curb on her royalist tongue, which was ever running a-riot in that
Puritan household.
It was an accident, in the end, that threw me across M.
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