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“Oh! Oh! Oh!” quoth Madame Hortense in three different tones, quickly picking them up. “So that’s the letter-box, eh?”

She was a trifle short-sighted, and, holding the loose pages close to her eyes, began to read. She knew English very well, and followed without the least trouble the small, neat lines of script that were disposed to slant diagonally down the sheets toward the outer corners, and as she read her kindly features gradually altered into something almost approaching a tragic mask. When she reached the last word of two copious epistles she confided them once more to Scott’s care, replaced his poems on the table where she had found them, and left the room with a curiously stiff gait, suggesting the Statue du Commandeur in “Don Juan.”

“So,” she thought, stalking wrathfully away, “Milady has a lover ... an English lover—created by Divine Providence expressly for her, excepting that he is not rich—an officer in the Life Guards, poor fellow!” Pausing for an instant, she leaned against the stair banister to reflect the better.