to go out. "You are not
a professional man, and I beg to decline answering you."

Buffeted in this inexcusably uncivil way on one cheek, the Count, like
a practical Christian, immediately turned the other, and said, in the
sweetest manner, "Good-morning, Mr. Dawson."

If my late beloved husband had been so fortunate as to know his
lordship, how highly he and the Count would have esteemed each other!

Her ladyship the Countess returned by the last train that night, and
brought with her the nurse from London. I was instructed that this
person's name was Mrs. Rubelle. Her personal appearance, and her
imperfect English when she spoke, informed me that she was a foreigner.

I have always cultivated a feeling of humane indulgence for foreigners.
They do not possess our blessings and advantages, and they are, for the
most part, brought up in the blind errors of Popery. It has also
always been my precept and practice, as it was my dear husband's
precept and practice before me (see Sermon XXIX. in the Collection by
the late Rev. Samuel Michelson, M.A.), to do as I would be done by. On
both these accounts I will not say that Mrs. Rubelle struck me as being
a small, wiry, sly person, of fifty or thereabouts, with a dark brown
or Creole complexion and watchful light grey eyes. Nor will I mention,
for the reasons just alleged, that I thought her dress, though it was
of the plainest black silk, inappropriately costly in texture and
unnecessarily refined in trimming and finish, for a person in her
position in life. I should not like these things to be said of me, and
therefore it is my duty not to say them of Mrs. Rubelle. I will merely
mention that her manners were, not perhaps unpleasantly reserved, but
only remarkably quiet and retiring--that she looked about her a great
deal, and said very little, which might have arisen quite as much from
her own modesty as from distrust of her position at Blackwater Park;
and that she declined to partake of supper (which was curious perhaps,
but surely not suspicious?), although I myself politely invited her to
that meal in my own room.

At the Count's particular suggestion (so like his lordship's forgiving
kindness!), it was arranged that Mrs. Rubelle should not enter on her
duties until she had been seen and approved by the doctor the next
morning. I sat up that night. Lady Glyde appeared to be very
unwilling that the new nurse should be employed to attend on Miss
Halcombe. Such