“I am extremely sorry! I am greatly distressed! But it is impossible for me to defer my departure. I will explain it all by a letter. Just unstrap that writing-desk, and I will write a few lines. You ordered the horses, I hope?” “Yes, Sir; they will be at the door by ten o’clock.” “Miss Courtenay knows I am here, I suppose?” said M’Kinlay, in a tone of well put-on indifference, as he opened his writing-desk and arranged his papers. “I don’t know, indeed, Sir; but she has the governess in her room with her, and perhaps she has heard it from her.” Mr. M’Kinlay bit his lip with impatience; he was vexed, and he was angry. Nor altogether was it unreasonable; he had come a long journey, at considerable inconvenience, and at a time he could be ill-spared from his clients; he had undergone fatigue and annoyance--the sort of annoyance which, to men who dislike the Continent, is not a trifling matter--and here he was now, about to set out again without so much as a word of thanks, not even a word of acknowledgment. What were they, or what was he, to justify such treatment? This was the somewhat irritating query to which all his self-examination reverted. “Am I a lacquey!” cried he, as he threw down his pen in a passionate outburst that completely overcame him. “I suppose they think I am a lacquey!” and he pushed back from the table in disgust. “Miss Courtenay, Sir, would be pleased to see you in the drawing-room, Sir, whenever it was convenient,” said a thin-looking damsel of unmistakably English mould. “I will wait upon her now,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, with the severe accents of an injured and indignant man. In fact, he spoke like one whose coming might be supposed to evoke sentiments of trepidation, if not of awe; and yet, after he had uttered the words, he fussed and pottered amongst his papers, arranging and settling, and undoing, in a way that to any shrewder observer than the Abigail, would have discovered a mind not by any means so bent upon peremptory action as he had assumed to bespeak.