Mrs.
Carruthers now announced dinner, when the Squire took in his sister,
Wilkinson, her daughter, Coristine, Marjorie, and Mr. Errol, the
hostess. All the pairs agreed in congratulating themselves on the
absence of the Grinstun man, and looked with approbation on Mr. Nash,
who, all alone but cheerful, brought up the rear. There was no room at
the table for the five youthful Carruthers, who rejoiced in the fact and
held high carnival in the kitchen with Tryphena and Tryphosa and their
maternal grandfather. Mr. Errol had said grace, and dinner was in
progress, when the hall door was heard to open, and, immediately, on
went the detective's facial disguise. But the lightness of the step that
followed it reassured him, so that his smooth features once more
appeared. Shortly afterwards Miss Du Plessis entered, apologizing for
her lateness, and taking the vacant chair between the host and the
dominie.
"I was really frightened," she said to the former, "by a dreadful little
man, with an Indian hat and a knapsack, who stopped and asked me if I
was Miss Do Please-us. When I told him that my name was Du Plessis, he
became much agitated, and cried 'Then I'm done, sold again and the money
paid,' after which he used such very bad language that I actually ran
away from him.
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