Angelique rushed out to evening freedom with a zest which became rapture
when she danced. Perhaps this fresh delight made her the best dancer in
Kaskaskia.
The autocrat loved to compound her own dinners. She had a salver which
Angelique placed before her on the bed; and the old child played in
pastry or salads, or cut vegetable dice for her soup. The baking or
boiling or roasting was done with rigor at her own fireplace by her
blacks, the whiplash in her hand hovering over their bare spots. Silence
was the law of the presence-chamber when she labored with her recipes,
of which she had many, looking like spider tracks on very yellow paper.
These she kept locked up with many of the ingredients for creating them.
She pored over them with unspectacled eyes whenever she mixed a cunning
dish; and even Angelique dared not meddle with them, though they were to
be part of the girl's inheritance.
Angelique now played on the harp to soothe tante-gra'mere's digestion
after her midday dinner, while outdoors all Kaskaskia buzzed with
excitement.
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