and, like a magic-lantern figure, presented
with a snap, appeared close before my eyes the great muffled face, with the
forbidding smirk, of Madame de la Rougierre.

'Wat you mean, my dear cheaile?' she inquired with a malevolent shrewdness
in her eyes, and her hollow smile all the time disconcerting me more even
than the suddenness of her appearance; 'wat for you approach so softly? I
do not sleep, you see, but you feared, perhaps, to have the misfortune of
wakening me, and so you came--is it not so?--to leesten, and looke in very
gentily; you want to know how I was. Vous etes bien aimable d'avoir pense
a moi. Bah!' she cried, suddenly bursting through her irony. 'Wy could not
Lady Knollys come herself and leesten to the keyhole to make her report?
Fi donc! wat is there to conceal? Nothing. Enter, if you please. Every one
they are welcome!' and she flung the door wide, turned her back upon me,
and, with an ejaculation which I did not understand, strode into the room.

'I did not come with any intention, Madame, to pry or to intrude--you
don't think so--you _can't_ think so--you can't possibly mean to insinuate
anything so insulting!'

I was very angry, and my tremors had all vanished now.

'No, not for _you_, dear cheaile; I was thinking to miladi Knollys, who,
without cause, is my enemy. Every one has enemy; you will learn all that so
soon as you are little older, and without cause she is mine. Come, Maud,
speak a the truth--was it not miladi Knollys who sent you here doucement,
doucement, so quaite to my door--is it not so, little rogue?'

Madame had confronted me again, and we were now standing in the middle of
her floor.

I indignantly repelled the charge, and searching me for a moment with her
oddly-shaped, cunning eyes, she said--

'That is good cheaile, you speak a so direct--I like that, and am glad to
hear; but, my dear Maud, that woman----'

'Lady Knollys is papa's cousin,' I interposed a little gravely.

'She does hate a me so, you av no idea. She as tryed to injure me several
times, and would employ the most innocent person, unconsciously you know,
my dear, to assist her malice.'

Here Madame wept a little. I had already discovered that she could shed
tears whenever she pleased. I have heard of such persons, but I never met
another before or since.

Madame was unusually frank--no one ever knew better when to be candid. At
present I suppose she concluded that Lady Knollys would certainly relate
w