du caractère . . ., firmness and decision

6. vous avez ... en reine. The sentence ending with du caractère was not finished. Abigail therefore completes it by this remark: Yoic have spoken to the duchess like a queen.

7. naïvement, almost = "giving herself away," naively, i.e. unguardedly, like a child who knows nothing of what constitutes ridicule.

Page 55. — i. les convenances, the rules of etiquette,