He has stick-up gray hair curling
all over his round head, blue eyes, twinkling with a mild, yet shrewd
expression (which might be merry if encouraged by her ladyship), and a
large, slouching body with stooped shoulders.
"What young lady have we here?" he inquired.
"Not a young lady at all," explained his wife sharply. "My new French
maid."
"I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said Sir Samuel, though it wasn't quite
clear whether it was my forgiveness or that of his spouse he craved, for
his mistake in supposing me to be a "young lady."
"What's her name?" he wanted to know, evidently approving of me, if not
as a maid, at least as a human being.
"Something ridiculous in French that sounds like 'Liz,'" sniffed her
ladyship. "But I shall call her Elise. Also I shall expect her to stop
dyeing her hair."
"But, madame, I do not dye it!" I exclaimed.
"Don't tell me. I know dyed hair when I see it."
(She ought to, having experience enough with her own!)
"Nature is the dyer, then," I ventured to persist, piqued to
self-defence by the certainty that her object was to strip me of my
wicked mask before her husband.
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