The old woman in the bonnet—who was at once housekeeper, cook, laundress, and parlour-maid in this curious establishment—was of course in the secret. But Lucius had found this ancient female improve upon acquaintance, and he was now upon intimate and friendly terms with her. She had lived for an indefinite length of years in Mr. Sivewright’s service—remembered Lucille’s childhood in the dark old back rooms in Bond-street—but no power of persuasion could extract any information from her. Upon entering Mr. Sivewright’s household in the remote past she had promised to hold her tongue; and she was religiously silent to this hour. Of the old man she could never be induced to say more than that he was a ‘carrack-ter;’ a remark which, accompanied as it always was with a solemn shake of her head, might be complimentary or otherwise. Lucille she praised with fondest enthusiasm, but of Lucille’s father she said not a word. On the various occasions when Lucius had ventured to press his questions on this subject, she had acted always in the same manner. Her countenance assumed a dark and forbidding aspect; she abruptly set down the dish, or tray, or teapot, or whatever object she might happen to be carrying, and as abruptly vanished from the room. Persistence here availed nothing. ‘Mr. Sivewright bound me over not to talk about his business when he first engaged me,’ she said once, when hard pressed by Lucius, who had hoped through her to obtain some better clue to the fate of Ferdinand Sivewright. ‘I’ve held my tongue for uppards o’ five-and-twenty years. It ain’t likely I should begin to blab now.’ Although uncommunicative, this faithful domestic was not unfriendly. She treated Lucille with an affectionate familiarity, and in a manner took the lovers under her wing. ‘I was sure and certain, the first time I laid eyes on him, that you and Dr. Davory would keep company,’ she said to Lucille; and her protecting influence overshadowed the lovers at all times, like the wings of a guardian angel. She evidently regarded herself in the light of Miss Sivewright’s duenna; and would come away from some mysterious operations in the labyrinthine offices and outhouses of the ancient mansion, where she had a piece of lumber which she spoke of casually as her good gentleman, in order to hover about Lucille and Lucius in their walks, or to listen, awestricken and open-mouthed, to the strains of the violin. Discovering ere long that this rough unpolished jewel was not wanting in some of the finer qualities of the diamond, Lucius admitted Mrs. Wincher, in some measure, to his confidence—discussed his future freely in her presence, imparted his hopes and fears, and felt that perhaps within this unbeauteous husk dwelt the soul of a friend; and assuredly neither he nor Lucille could afford to sacrifice a friend on account of external shortcomings. So Mrs. Wincher was accepted by him, bonnet and all, and her hoverings about the pathway of innocent love went unreproved.