Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/326

D'RI AND I stone. Many acres of park and field and garden were shut in with high walls. I rang a bell at the small gate, and some fellow in livery took my message.

"Wait 'ere, my lass," said he, with an English accent. "I 'll go at once to the secretary."

I sat in a rustic chair by the gate-side, waiting for that functionary.

"Ah, come in, come in," said he, coolly, as he opened the gate a little.

He said nothing more, and I followed him—an oldish man with gray eyes and hair and side-whiskers, and neatly dressed, his head covered to the ears with a high hat, tilted backward. We took a stone path, and soon entered a rear door.

"She may sit in the servants' hall," said he to one of the maids,

They took my shawl, as he went away, and showed me to a room where, evidently, the servants did their eating. They were inquisitive, those kitchen maids, and now and then I was rather put to it for a wise reply. I said as little as might be, using the dialect, long familiar to me, of the French Canadian. My bonnet