Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/327

D'RI AND I amused them. It was none too new or fashionable, and I did not remove it.

"Afraid we 'll steal it," I heard one of them whisper in the next room. Then there was a loud laugh.

They gave me a French paper. I read every line of it, and sat looking out of a window at the tall trees, at servants who passed to and fro, at his Lordship's horses, led up and down for exercise in the stable-yard, at the twilight glooming the last pictures of a long day until they were all smudged with darkness. Then candle-light, a trying supper hour with maids and cooks and grooms and footmen at the big table, English, every one of them, and set up with haughty curiosity. I would not go to the table, and had a cup of tea and a biscuit there in my corner. A big butler walked in hurriedly awhile after seven. He looked down at me as if I were the dirt of the gutter.

"They 're waitin'," said he, curtly. "An' Sir Chawles would like to know if ye would care for a humberreller?"

"Ah, m'sieu'! he rains?" I inquired.