The Markiness had made quite a little circle of acquaintances in Hampstead, where her manners and her title, so incongruous with each other, had excited a great amount of curiosity and interest. Mrs. Barnett, the grocer’s wife, declared that she had quite turned her ideas regarding the aristocracy, she was so affable and friendly-like, and Mrs. Thomson, the butcher’s lady, said that if she had not known that she was a marchioness, she should have taken her for one of themselves. So Hannah, after having enjoyed an hour or two of converse with these amiable creatures, returned to the Cottage with her little basket on her arm, well primed for supper. First, there was a fowl, ready roasted, which she had bought at the ham and beef shop, with a pound of cut ham to eat with it--a crisp lettuce and some ruddy tomatoes, which were Ricardo’s greatest luxuries--and half a dozen cheese-cakes--which were hers. When, with the aid of her little maid, Charlotte, who numbered fifteen years, she had set these dainties forth upon the table, Hannah sent a message up to her husband to say that his supper was ready, but in a few minutes Charlotte returned, gaping, with the intelligence that the Markiss wouldn’t answer her, and she thought he must be asleep. Then Hannah piled a plate with something of everything on the table, and carrying it upstairs herself, thundered such a tattoo upon the Professor’s door, that he was obliged to answer it. “Who is there?” he inquired. “It’s me--Hannah!--I’ve brought you up your supper!” “I don’t want it! I don’t want anything! Go away!” was the reply. “Come on! Don’t be foolish! You’d better eat it!” said his wife. “No! no! All I want is to be left alone!” “All right!” exclaimed Hannah, as she placed the plate with a loud clatter on the floor, “there it is, anyway, so don’t go and say you haven’t had it!” She bounced downstairs again, with the tread of an elephant, which Ricardo, hearing, turned on his bed and sighed. Hannah, however, did not sigh, but applying herself to the remains of the supper, soon left nothing but the chicken bones for Charlotte to dispose of. Then she took out some of her needle-work, and toiled industriously for the best part of an hour. But her mind was not entirely easy the while. She was fidgety and anxious. More than once she rose from her chair and, casting the embroidery aside, paced up and down the little room. “What a fool I am!” she thought, “why should I have any scruples on the matter? Had _he?_ Ha! ha! ha! had he?” When nine o’clock struck, she took a spirit flask from the cellaret and called to her little maid to bring hot water. “I am going to mix the Markiss a glass of whiskey and water, he is sure to drink it during the night, if not now, and he will want something to make him sleep. Go and fetch a tray--now, make haste, and bring it to me!” “Yes! Mum--my lady!----” replied Charlotte, who had never been able to acquire the proper method of addressing a Marchioness.