“Well, either,” rejoined Sally; “only Miss had the last chance.” “Oh, curates go for nothin’!” retorted Benson; “if it had been a captin it would have been something like.” “Well, but there’s Miss Harriet; you never mention Miss Harriet, why shouldn’t Miss Harriet have a chance?” interposed the cook. “Oh. Miss Harriet must wait her turn. Let her sisters be served first. They can’t all have him, you know, so it’s no use trying.” Billy having entered the house, the ladies’ attention was now directed to Monsieur. “What a thick, plummy man he is!” observed Benson, looking down on Rougier’s broad shoulders. “He looks as if he got his vittles well,” rejoined Bone, wondering how he would like their lean beef and bacon fare. “Where will he have to sleep?” asked Sally Scuttle. “O, with the Bumbler to be sure,” replied Bone. “Not _he!_” interposed Miss Benson, with disdain. “You don’t s’pose a reg’lar valley-de-chambre ‘ill condescend to sleep with a footman! You don’t know them—if you think that.” “He’s got mouse catchers,” observed Sally Scuttle, who had been eyeing Monsieur intently. “Ay, and a beard like a blacking brush,” whispered Bone. “He’s surely a foreigner,” whispered Benson, as Monsieur’s, “_I say!_ take _vell_ care of her!—_lee_aft her down j-e-a-ntly” (alluding to his own carpet bag, in which he had a bottle of rum enveloped in swaddling clothes of dirty linen) to the cabman, sounded upstairs. “So he is,” replied Benson, adding, after a pause, “Well, anybody may have him for me;”—saying which she tripped out of the room, quickly followed by the others. Our Major having, on the first alarm, rushed off to his dirty Sanctum, and crowned himself with a drab felt wide-a-wake, next snatched a little knotty dog-whip out of the trophy as he passed, and was at the sash door of the front entrance welcoming our hero with the full spring tide of hospitality as he alighted from his fly. The Major was overjoyed to see him. It was indeed kind of him, leaving the castle to “come and visit them in their ‘umble abode.” The Major, of course, now being on the humility tack.