hborhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures gave to
the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At first
indeed, they had no woman servant at all. But this created such horror
that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which Riccabocca took in
very good part, and an old woman was forthwith engaged, after some
bargaining--at three shillings a week--to wash and scrub as much as she
liked during the daytime. She always returned to her own cottage to sleep.
The man-servant, who was styled in the neighborhood "Jackeymo," did all
else for his master--smoothed his room, dusted his papers, prepared his
coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed his clothes, and cleaned his pipes, of
which Riccabocca had a large collection. But, however close a man's
character, it generally creeps out in driblets; and on many little
occasions the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, on some more rare
occasions, even of generosity, which had served to silence his
calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair
reputation--suspected, it is true, of being a little inclined to the Black
Art, and of a strange inclination to starve Jackeymo and himself--in other
respects harmless enough.

Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the
Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the Squire was inclined to
be very friendly to all his neighbors--he was, like most country gentlemen,
rather easily _huffed_. Riccabocca had, if with great politeness, still
with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier invitations to
dinner, and when the Squire found, that the Italian rarely declined to
dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak points, viz.,
his regard for the honor of the hospitality of Hazeldean Hall--and he
ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected. Nevertheless, as it
was impossible for the Squire, however huffed, to bear malice, he now and
then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by presents of game, and would
have called on him more often than he did, but that Riccabocca received
him with such excessive politeness that the blunt country gentleman felt
shy and put out, and used to say that "to call on Riccabocca was as bad as
going to court."

But I left Dr. Riccabocca on the high-road. By this time he has ascended a
narrow path that winds by the side of the cascade, he has passed a
trellis-work covered with vines, from the which Jackeymo has po