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into his pocket on the spot and jingled a few pennies into my hand, which was very thoughtful of him.
    While Lucien chattered, I sat wondering what solicitor my father could have hired. We did not have a family solicitor. Our business matters were not large or complicated enough to ever have required one. There was some worry too as to how he would ever be paid. A city solicitor would not come cheap.
    Beaudel enquired, as soon as we were inside the door, whether Major Morrison had arrived yet. He had not, but Mrs. Beaudel was decked in the finest array to greet him when he did come. She wore green sprigged muslin, with green grosgrain ribbons laced through the edifice she had erected on top of her head. She looked quite lovely, but too ornate for midday. The hair did not match the gown, and the gown did not match the silken shawl she was in the process of drawing around her shoulders. Each part of the toilette was unexceptionable, but not together, and not all for day wear. I concluded Madam had gained her notions of elegance from fashion magazines, and not from good company.
    I believe she was tired of waiting for the Major to come. When I went to my room to put off my bonnet, I saw through the window that she was walking through the park. Strolling I mean, not hastening anywhere. Beyond, in the middle distance, the onion dome of a Chinese pavilion was visible. One sees many such gazebos since our Prince Regent brought them into fashion. This one, perhaps, might prove on closer examination to have an Indian influence, as the Beaudels had some long association with that country. I would take Lucien there soon and examine the gazebo.
    Amidst my other concerns was to learn something about Miss Little, the vanished governess. When Tees, the kitchen servant, brought our dinner to the nursery, I undertook to quiz her about this lady, after first sending Lucien off to wash his hands.
    “Has anything been heard of Miss Little, Tess?” I asked.
    “No investigations are being made, miss,” she told me, with a knowing look on her face.
    “Surely that is odd!”
    “I don’t know about that. A girl that got a letter from her beau one day and that was seen walking with him in the park the next, the very day she took off—well, there’s not much doubt where she went, is there?”
    “She did have a beau then. Lucien said she had not.”
    “She was as close as skin to a lemon, miss. She never said a word about it, but she got a letter, and it didn’t look like a lady’s fine writing to me, though she claimed it was from a girl friend.”
    “It could have come from a relative, a brother or father.”
    “Why would a decent relative go sending his note to the back door by a messenger? He’d have it come with the mail, if he wasn’t ashamed of hisself. And she didn’t have no family either. She made a point of telling us all so.”
    “I understand Sir Algernon hired her in London.”
    “He was taken in good and proper. We all were. We thought she was a very nice sort of a girl, but you see how she carried on when she got the chance. She’s not a bride is what we all think in the kitchen, miss. Why else would she make a great mystery of it, but that she was ashamed of herself, and so she should be too.”
    “That is a pity. What have we for dinner?” I asked, to terminate the subject. “Ah, a nice slice of lamb. It should be tender this time of the year.”
    “So it is, miss. I’ve had a bite belowstairs, and never tasted  lamb so good.” She smiled, unstacking the tray and laying out our meal very nicely.
    Despite all my problems, I was ready to do justice to it. I expect I inherited my hearty appetite from my father, although I am happy to say I have not inherited that very large, square frame one sees so often in Dutch ladies. My English mother was dainty, small-boned and delicate, which modified my size. I wish I had got her beautiful face as well, but I confess to a broader set of cheekbones than I like. Mama’s