and looking at her prints and photographs (which he thought
prodigiously pretty), and at last he heard the opening of a door to
which his back was turned. On the threshold stood an old woman whom he
remembered to have met several times in entering and leaving the house.
She was tall and straight and dressed in black, and she wore a cap
which, if Newman had been initiated into such mysteries, would have been
a sufficient assurance that she was not a Frenchwoman; a cap of pure
British composition. She had a pale, decent, depressed-looking face, and
a clear, dull, English eye. She looked at Newman a moment, both intently
and timidly, and then she dropped a short, straight English curtsey.

"Madame de Cintre begs you will kindly wait," she said. "She has just
come in; she will soon have finished dressing."

"Oh, I will wait as long as she wants," said Newman. "Pray tell her not
to hurry."

"Thank you, sir," said the woman, softly; and then, instead of retiring
with her message, she advanced into the room. She looked about her for a
moment, and presently went to a table and began to arrange certain books
and knick-knacks. Newman was struck with the high respectability of
her appearance; he was afraid to address her as a servant. She busied
herself for some moments with putting the table in order and pulling the
curtains straight, while Newman walked slowly to and fro. He perceived
at last from her reflection in the mirror, as he was passing that her
hands were idle and that she was looking at him intently. She evidently
wished to say something, and Newman, perceiving it, helped her to begin.

"You are English?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, please," she answered, quickly and softly; "I was born in
Wiltshire."

"And what do you think of Paris?"

"Oh, I don't think of Paris, sir," she said in the same tone. "It is so
long since I have been here."

"Ah, you have been here very long?"

"It is more than forty years, sir. I came over with Lady Emmeline."

"You mean with old Madame de Bellegarde?"

"Yes, sir. I came with her when she was married. I was my lady's own
woman."

"And you have been with her ever since?"

"I have been in the house ever since. My lady has taken a younger
person. You see I am very old. I do nothing regular now. But I keep
about."

"You look very strong and well," said Newman, observing the erectness of
her figure, and a certain venerable rosiness in her cheek.

"Thank God I am not ill, sir; I ho