Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/102

 The housekeeper shook her head—

"There were people, Mademoiselle, but"—as if suddenly recollecting herself, "it does not become me to tell family secrets."

The curiosity of Madeline was highly raised, but into secrets which indeed she thought properly withheld, she could not think of prying.

"Would not the sympathizing society of friends be of some service to your Lord?" asked Madeline, after the pause of a minute.

"I scarcely think it would, Madam, (answered the housekeeper) but at any rate he will not try whether it would have any effect upon him; he lives the most strange and solitary life imaginable, rambling about from one seat to another, and never admitting any one to his presence, except his attendants, and now and then a kinsman, who lives some leagues from this, and will be his heir. This castle, in the life time of my Lady, was one of the finest and gayest places perhaps you