"The dinner will be served in an hour, me leddy. Will I bring your leddyship a cup of tea before you begin to dress?" inquired the housekeeper. "If you please, you may send it to me by one of my own women. You are too aged to walk up and down stairs," replied Claudia kindly. "Hech, sirs! I'm e'en reddy to haud me ain wi' any lassie i' the house," said she, nodding her tall, flapping white sap. "Will you tell me your name, that I may know in future what to call you?" Claudia asked. "It's e'en just Mistress Murdock, at your leddyship's bidding. And now I'll gae bring the tea." "Send my servant Katie to me at the same time," said Lady Vincent, who, when she was left alone, turned again to view the magnificence that surrounded her. "If ever I spend another autumn on this bleak coast, I shall take care to fill the castle halls and chambers with gay company," she said to herself. The housekeeper entered with an elegant little tea-service of gold plate, and set it on a stand of mosaic work, by Claudia's side. While she was drinking her tea Katie entered, smiling with both her eyes and all her teeth. "Well, my ladyship, ma'am, this looks like life at last; don't it, though?" "I think so, Katie," said her mistress, sipping her aromatic "oolong." "I like Scraggy better nor I thought I would." "You like what?" "This big jail of a house--Scraggy something or other they call it." "Castle Cragg." "Yes, that's it; plague take the outlandish names, I say!" "Now, Katie, unpack my maize-colored moire antique. I must dress for dinner." Of course Claudia expected to meet no one at dinner except the disagreeable companion of her journey; but Claudia would have made an elaborate evening toilet had there been no one but herself to admire it. So she arrayed herself with very great splendor and went downstairs. In the lower hall she found the porter and several footmen. "Show me into the drawing room," she said to the former. Old Cuthbert bowed and walked before her, and threw open a pair of folding doors leading into the grand saloon of the castle. And Claudia entered. CHAPTER XVI. FAUSTINA. And she was beautiful, they said; I saw that she was more-- One of those women women dread, Men fatally adore. --_Anon._ It was a saloon of magnificent proportions and splendid decorations. And Claudia was sailing across it with majestic gait, in the full consciousness of being the Viscountess Vincent and Lady of the Castle, when suddenly her eyes fell upon an object that arrested her footsteps, while she gazed in utter amazement.