‘Yes, madam. It stood there before the great duke bought up the forest manor, and His Majesty allowed my master to retain this lodge and the privilege of sporting in the chase.’ ‘Well, and you are Mr. Pakenham’s housekeeper?’ ‘Yes, madam.’ The lady surveyed Miss Laury with another furtive side-glance of her large majestic eyes. Those eyes lingered upon the diamond earrings, the bandeau of brilliants that flashed from between the clusters of raven curls; then passed over the sweet face, the exquisite figure of the young housekeeper, and finally were reverted to the wall with an expression that spoke volumes. Miss Laury could have torn the dazzling pendants from her ears. She was bitterly stung. In her turn she gazed on her guest. The lady was but a young creature, though so high and commanding in her demeanour. She had very small and feminine features, handsome eyes, a neck of delicate curve, and fair, long, and graceful little snowy aristocratic hands, and sandalled feet to match. It would have been difficult to tell her rank by her dress. None of those dazzling witnesses appeared which had betrayed Miss Laury. Any gentleman’s wife might have worn the gown of dark-blue silk, the tinted gloves of Parisian kid, and the fairy sandals of black satin in which she was attired. ‘May I have a room to myself?’ she asked, again turning her eyes with something of a smile toward Miss Laury. ‘Certainly, madam; I wish to make you comfortable. Can you walk upstairs?’ ‘Oh, yes!’ She rose from her couch, and leaning on Miss Laury’s arm in a way that showed she had been used to that sort of support, they both glided from the room. Having seen her fair but haughty guest carefully laid on a stately crimson bed in a quiet and spacious chamber; having seen her head sink with all its curls into the pillow of down, her large shy eyes close under their smooth eyelids, and her little slender hands fold on her breast in an attitude of perfect repose, Miss Laury prepared to leave her. She stirred. ‘Come back a moment,’ she said. She was obeyed; there was something in her tone of voice which exacted obedience. ‘I don’t know who you are;’ she said, ‘but I am very much obliged to you for your kindness. If my manners are displeasing, forgive me; I mean no incivility. I suppose you will wish to know my name: it is Mrs. Irving; my husband is a minister in the northern kirk; I come from Sneachiesland. Now you may go!’ Miss Laury did go. Mrs. Irving had testified incredulity respecting her story, and now she reciprocated that incredulity. Both ladies were lost in their own mystification.