"I mention it! My dear madam, all these years that you have known me, and is my character a sealed book to you still?" "For my part, I don't like him," said Joseph once to Markes, and he was politely told not to be a fool. Cook, however, who had a yearning after the mysterious, proved to be of a more sympathetic mind, and when Joseph told her his opinion, that this Mr Montaigne was only a Jesuit and a priest in disguise, cook said she shouldn't a bit wonder, for "them sort often was." Now, cook had not seen Mr Montaigne, so her judgment should be taken _cum grano_, as also in the case where Joseph declared Mr Montaigne to be "a deep 'un," when she declared that was sure to be the case. On the night of the dinner-party at Hampton, the carriage--to wit, Mr Buddy's fly--had no sooner departed than Markes announced her intention of going next door to see Lady Anna Maria Morton's maid; at which cook grunted, and, being left alone, proceeded to take out a basket from the dresser drawer, and seated herself to have what she called a couple of hours' good darn. One of those hours had nearly passed, and several black worsted stockings had been ornamented with patches of rectangular embroidery, when the outer door-bell rang. "If that's one of them dratted soldiers calling with his impudence, he'll get sent off with a flea in his ear," cried cook. She bounced up angrily, and made her way to the door. It was no gallant Lancer in undress uniform and a cane under his arm, but Mr Paul Montaigne, whom cook at once knew by his description. "The ladies in?" he said quietly. "No, sir; which, please, they've gone to dine at Lady Littletown's." "To be sure, yes, I had forgotten," he said, smiling nicely--so cook put it--at the plump domestic. "But never mind, I will have a few minutes' chat with Miss Clotilde and Miss Marie." "Which they've gone as well, sir." "To be sure, yes, I ought to have known," said the visitor absently, "I ought to have remembered; and is Miss Ruth gone as well?" "Oh no, sir; she's in the schoolroom all alone!" "Indeed!" said Mr Montaigne, raising his eyebrows. "Ah, well, I will not disturb--and yet, I don't know; I am rather tired, and I will have a few minutes' chat with her before I walk back." "Such a nice, mild-spoken kind of gentleman, though he had rather a papish look," said cook; and she ushered the visitor into the empty drawing-room, going directly after to tell Ruth. It was growing dark, and Ruth, who was in bad spirits at having been left alone, felt a kind of shrinking, she could not have told why, from meeting Mr Montaigne. He had always been quiet and paternal in his treatment, and she had, as a rule, shared the lessons of Clotilde and Marie; but, somehow, Ruth was one of the women whose confidence he had never won. "Ah, Ruth, my child," he said, advancing with quiet, cat-like step as she entered, and his voice sounded soft and velvety in the silence of the gloomy place, "and so you are all alone?"