you will accept my apologies for to-night, and permit Lady
Lundie's steward to see to your comfort in my place."

Adopted unanimously. Sir Patrick left the guests to their billiards, and
went out to give the necessary orders at the stables.

In the mean time Blanche remained portentously quiet in the upper
regions of the house; while Lady Lundie steadily pursued her inquiries
down stairs. She got on from Jonathan (last of the males, indoors) to
the coachman (first of the males, out-of-doors), and dug down, man by
man, through that new stratum, until she struck the stable-boy at the
bottom. Not an atom of information having been extracted in the house
or out of the house, from man or boy, her ladyship fell back on
the women next. She pulled the bell, and summoned the cook--Hester
Dethridge.

A very remarkable-looking person entered the room.

Elderly and quiet; scrupulously clean; eminently respectable; her gray
hair neat and smooth under her modest white cap; her eyes, set deep in
their orbits, looking straight at any person who spoke to her--here,
at a first view, was a steady, trust-worthy woman. Here also on closer
inspection, was a woman with the seal of some terrible past suffering
set on her for the rest of her life. You felt it, rather than saw it, in
the look of immovable endurance which underlain her expression--in the
deathlike tranquillity which never disappeared from her manner. Her
story was a sad one--so far as it was known. She had entered Lady
Lundie's service at the period of Lady Lundie's marriage to Sir Thomas.
Her character (given by the clergyman of her parish) described her as
having been married to an inveterate drunkard, and as having suffered
unutterably during her husband's lifetime. There were drawbacks to
engaging her, now that she was a widow. On one of the many occasions on
which her husband had personally ill-treated her, he had struck her a
blow which had produced very remarkable nervous results. She had lain
insensible many days together, and had recovered with the total loss of
her speech. In addition to this objection, she was odd, at times, in her
manner; and she made it a condition of accepting any situation, that she
should be privileged to sleep in a room by herself As a set-off against
all this, it was to be said, on the other side of the question, that she
was sober; rigidly honest in all her dealings; and one of the best cooks
in England. In consideration of this last me