To such as have not known, or met with the class Sir Within pertained to, it will perhaps seem incredible that the old rake actually felt flattered by this attack on his reputation. All that he had ever known of life was passed amongst people of admirable manners and very lax morals. They were the best bred, the best informed, the best dressed, and the pleasantest in the universe. Nowhere was life so easy and agreeable as in their company; every one was kind, considerate, and obliging; not a hard word was ever dropped. Who could be uncharitable where all was tolerated? Who could be severe where everything was pardoned? It was by a very easy induction that he was led to believe that a certain laxity on the score of morals was an essential element of good breeding, and that nothing was so low in tone as that “eternal scrutiny,” as he called it, into one’s neighbours’ habits, which would make of a gentleman very little other than a detective. When he heard, therefore, that a certain Mademoiselle La Grange had taken her departure on these exceptional grounds, he actually chuckled with delighted vanity. “So ‘Ma Mie’”--this was his pet name for Kate--“they tell me that Mademoiselle has gone off this morning,” said he, “no longer able to tolerate a house where there is no mistress.” “The note she left behind her went fully into the matter,” said Kate. “It was not alone that you were unmarried, but that you were a very well-known monster of vice.” “Vrai! vrai!” cried he, with ecstasy; “monstre épouvantable!” “And, to confirm it, she added, that no one came here; that the neighbours avoided the house, as the abode of a plague; and even sight-seers would not gratify the craving of their curiosity at the cost of their propriety.” “Did she say all that?” “Yes; she said it very neatly, too; as prettily and as tersely as such impertinence can be put in nice French.” “And this is the ninth departure, is it not, Ma Mie, on these high grounds of morality?” “No, Sir; only the fifth. Two alleged loneliness, one accused the damp, and one protested against _my_ temper!” “What had you done, then?” “Everything that was cross and ill natured. It was the unlucky week that Cid Hamet staked himself.” “I remember; there were two days you would not come down to dinner on pretence of headache, and you told me afterwards it was all ill humour.” “Because I always tell you everything,” said she, with a smile so captivatingly beautiful, that it lit up her fave as the sun lights up a landscape. “I am sorry, too,” said he, after a short silence, “that Mademoiselle should have gone away at this moment, for I am expecting visitors.” “Visitors, Sir?”