"Monsieur need say no more," replied the gentleman, in a most courteous and sympathetic tone. "My house shall be the lady's inn and your own. There is no hostess yet to welcome her, but fortunately there is a maid, whom I shall send immediately. As for you, monsieur, when you have seen the lady cared for, Etienne will show you, if you choose, to the room in which I shall be at supper. The lady will doubtless prefer to sup in her own apartment." "I thank you, monsieur, but we have supped already. I will do myself the honor to join you, nevertheless, and make myself better acquainted with so courteous a gentleman." The gentleman smiled, bowed, and disappeared through an inner door. Dick returned to Collette. "A maid will come for you in a moment," said he. "Our host is a most charming gentleman, both in act and in appearance." "I did not look out of the carriage to see him," said Collette, taking Dick's hand and stepping to the ground. "Why, how strange that I should be a guest at this house! I recognize it now. It is one that I have often noticed while riding past in the road below. I have always wished I might live in it." A maid now appeared at the doorway. Collette took leave of Dick for the night, saying she desired nothing further and would defer till morning her meeting with the master of the house. Dick thereupon sent the shivering postilion, with horses, carriage, and whip, back to the auberge, and asked Etienne, the servant who had let him in, and who still stood in the entrance-hall, to show him to the supper table. In a richly furnished room, softly lighted by wax candles, and warmed by fragrant fagots in a small fireplace, he found his considerate host seated at a well-filled table, opposite a round-faced priest, still under middle age, who beamed with merriment and good nature. Dick announced his name, and was thereupon introduced to the Abbe Foyard by the master of the house, who then said: "Monsieur will pardon me, I am sure, if I adhere--merely for the sake of habit--to the incognito I am preserving in this neighborhood at present. I do not wish my name to get abroad as the new purchaser of this estate." "My obligations are no less for my not knowing to whom they are due, monsieur," said Dick, taking the seat to which his host motioned him, at the table. He would eat nothing, but he would drink some wine, and he joined in a toast of Burgundy, proposed by the Abbe, with a twinkling eye, to "Madame la Comtesse that is to be."