His apparel was very peculiar, as he generally wore above his ordinary dress a large long waisted red coat, hooked round his neck at the collar, somewhat in the manner of a cloak, without his arms being thrust into the sleeves; his shoes were very high in the instep, and buckled with a small buckle over the front; but as he was a little man, and of a somewhat aspiring disposition, the heels of those shoes were enormously high, sufficient to raise him nearly two inches from the ground, and make his foot in external appearance very like that of a calf or a Chinese lady.  Indeed, in body and in mind likewise, he was upon tiptoes the whole day long.

His entrance into the room where the lady was, roused her at once from the reverie into which she had fallen; and taking up the letter from the ground, she turned to see who it was that came in.

“Madam,” he said, speaking in French, which, be it remarked, was the language used between them during the whole conversation, “were it not better for you to retire to rest?  You spoil your complexion, you impair your beauty, by these long vigils.”

“Beauty!” she said, with something of a scoff.  “But why should I retire, as you call it, to rest, Plessis?  You mean to say, retire to think more deeply still, in darkness as well as in solitude.”

“Madam,” replied Plessis, “you take these things too heavily.  But the truth is, I have a fair company coming here, by whom you might not well like to be seen.  Far be it from me, if you think otherwise, to disturb you in possession of the apartments.  But they come here at midnight to consult, it would seem, upon business of importance; whereof I know nothing, indeed, but which I know requires secrecy and care.”

“Business of importance!” said the lady, somewhat scornfully—­“to seat a bigoted dotard on the throne of England!  That is what they come to consult about.  Are they not some of those whom I saw yesterday morning from the window? that dark Sir George Barkley, who used to walk through the halls of St. Germain’s, in gloomy silence, till the profane courtiers called him the shadow of the cloud? and that sanguinary Charnock, whom I once heard conferring with the banished queen, and vowing that there was no way but one of dealing with usurpers, and that was by the dagger?  If these are your guests, Plessis, I know the business that they come for full well.”

“I neither know, beautiful lady,” replied Plessis, “nor do I seek to know.  So pray tell me nothing thereof.  Many a grown man in his day has been hanged for knowing too much, and nobody but a schoolboy was ever punished for knowing too little.  These gentlemen come about their own business.  I meddle not with it; and I must not shame my hospitality so much as to say, ’Good gentlemen, you shall not meet at my house!’”

“You are a wise and prudent man, Plessis,” replied the lady:  “bid the girl take a light to my chamber; I will go there and muse—­not that I fear their seeing me; but the Lady Helen, perhaps, might wish it otherwise.”