"Oh," answered the latter, striving to perpetrate a pun, "Only that we have brought Phin a handmaiden, and she finds her handsomer than is agreeable;--but there is many a servant comelier than the mistress."
"Let me behold this Paragon," said the Seigneur, at the same time rising, and moving towards the door of the inner room, that had been left ajar by the rude Seraphine, in her indignant exit. Pushing it slowly open, he beheld Amanda, with half-averted form, seated upon a chair, her head bowed, but her face wearing an expression of proud serenity mixed with grief. His first impulse was to retire; but pity, respect, admiration, and even awe, bound him to the spot, and he remained gazing till curiosity and commiseration alike combined to induce him to address a figure so incongruous with that mean place, and whose majestic sorrow seemed too sacred for interruption.
"Young lady, by your leave; pray pardon me; but can a stranger be of service to you?" he at length enquired.
Amanda looked upward. "Oh, if you are, as you seem to be, a gentleman, do not leave me;" she exclaimed beseechingly, as she slowly rose and approached him: "do not leave me, but convey me back to Stillyside, from whence I have been stolen by that man. Oh, sir, you do not know with what a load of thanks its owner will repay you, should you rescue me from this base durance."
The seigneur looked enquiringly at Samson, but the latter seemed more disposed to wait to see how the seigneur regarded the appeal, than to reply to the tacit question.
"Why have you been brought hither, and against your will?" resumed the seigneur, respectfully.
"I am as yet ignorant of the cause;" she answered: "I do not know, I cannot divine, why I am here a prisoner."
"She does know;" fiercely interrupted the sobbing Seraphine, "She does, she does," she reiterated, and seemed disposed to fly at her tooth and nail. "She knows she is a bold and wicked creature,--she, she, she; she is a, a,--I don't know what she is;" she cried, spurting out the last words in a paroxysm of sorrow and vexation, and flung herself into a chair sobbing hysterically, with toilet and temper alike disordered.
"Calm yourself, Seraphine," said the Seigneur.
"Yes, calm thyself, girl," echoed the ponderous Samson. "Why, what a wild duck thou art, sister, flapping and quacking because an unshotted barrel has been fired at thee. She is an unshotted gun, she has no name; and what is a thing without a name? nothing: for if it were something it would have been called something. What thing is there--that is a thing--that has not got what a pudding has? a name," and he laughed till his sides shook, and drawing a pouch from his pocket, took thence a quid of tobacco, and put it into his cheek, at the same time playfully offering another to the outraged Seraphine, who petulently dashed it from his fingers, and affected to bridle at the insult.