to play the part of tailor in the public eye, which was all that
was required by the nature of his vengeance. A placard was hung above
the hutch, bearing these words in something of the following
disposition:

JAMES DURIE,
FORMERLY MASTER OF BALLANTRAE.
CLOTHES NEATLY CLOUTED.
______

SECUNDRA DASS,
DECAYED GENTLEMAN OF INDIA.
FINE GOLDSMITH WORK.

Underneath this, when he had a job, my gentleman sat withinside
tailor-wise and busily stitching. I say, when he had a job; but such
customers as came were rather for Secundra, and the Master's sewing
would be more in the manner of Penelope's. He could never have designed
to gain even butter to his bread by such a means of livelihood: enough
for him that there was the name of Durie dragged in the dirt on the
placard, and the sometime heir of that proud family set up cross-legged
in public for a reproach upon his brother's meanness. And in so far his
device succeeded that there was murmuring in the town and a party formed
highly inimical to my lord. My lord's favour with the Governor laid him
more open on the other side; my lady (who was never so well received in
the colony) met with painful innuendoes; in a party of women, where it
would be the topic most natural to introduce, she was almost debarred
from the naming of needle-work; and I have seen her return with a
flushed countenance, and vow that she would go abroad no more.

In the meanwhile my lord dwelled in his decent mansion, immersed in
farming; a popular man with his intimates, and careless or unconscious
of the rest. He laid on flesh; had a bright, busy face; even the heat
seemed to prosper with him; and my lady--in despite of her own
annoyances--daily blessed Heaven her father should have left her such a
paradise. She had looked on from a window upon the Master's humiliation;
and from that hour appeared to feel at ease. I was not so sure myself;
as time went on, there seemed to me a something not quite wholesome in
my lord's condition. Happy he was, beyond a doubt, but the grounds of
this felicity were secret; even in the bosom of his family he brooded
with manifest delight upon some private thought; and I conceived at last
the suspicion (quite unworthy of us both) that he kept a mistress
somewhere in the town. Yet he went little abroad, and his day was very
fully occupied; indeed, there was but a single period, and that pretty
early in the morning, while Mr.