How he lived none knew, but it was supposed that he had an income from a vineyard in Central France, one which he had inherited from his father, an English gentleman who had had a taste for wine-growing. Mr Paul Montaigne never contradicted the rumour, and he never entered into particulars about his past. He had been the friend of the mother of Clotilde and Marie. He had brought the children over to England when quite a young man, with a very French look and a suggestion of his being a student at a French religious seminary. He had brought letters of introduction with him, and he had been in England ever since. Time seemed to have stood still with Paul Montaigne. Certainly, he was just a shade stouter, and there were a few bright, silvery-looking hairs about his temples; in other respects he looked quite a young man, for his smoothly-shaven face showed scarcely a line, his dark eyes were bright, and his black brows were as smoothly arched as if drawn with a pair of compasses. Upon that smooth face there was always a pensive, half-sad smile, one which he seemed to be constantly trying to wipe off with his soft, plump, well-shaped, and very white hand, but without success, for the smile was always there--the quiet, beseeching smile, that won so many women's confidence, but sometimes had the contrary effect upon the sterner sex. Those who said that he was a student were to some extent right, for his modest lodgings at Teddington were well furnished with books, and he was a familiar object to many, as with his white hands clasped behind him he walked in his semi-clerical habit to and from the Palace at Hampton Court--through Bushey Park, and always on the same side of the road, making a point of pausing at the inlet of the Diana Pool to throw crumbs of bread to the eager fish, before continuing his walk in by the Lion Gate into the Palace gardens to the large fountain basin, where the great gold and silver fish also had their portion. He never spoke to anyone; apparently nobody ever spoke to him, and he went his way to and fro, generally known as "the priest," making his journeys two or three times a week to call at the apartments of the Honourable Misses Dymcox to see his young pupils, as he called them, and to converse with them to keep up their French. Upon these occasions he partook of the weak tea handed round by Joseph, and broke a portion off one of the thin biscuits that accompanied the cups. In fact, he was an institution with the Dymcox family, and had been duly taken into the ladies' confidence respecting the movement proposed by Lady Littletown. "My dear ladies," he had responded, "you know my position here--my trust to the dead; I watch over the welfare of their children, and you tell me this is for their well-being. What else can I say but may your plans prosper?" "But I would not mention it to the children, Mr Montaigne," said Miss Philippa.