wonder ere two doors simultaneously opened, and Francois presented himself at the one, while the shining and doubting face of the slave from town darkened the other.  The eyes of Myndert rolled first to this side and then to that, a certain misgiving of the heart preventing him from speaking to either; for he saw, in the disturbed features of each, omens that bade him prepare himself for unwelcome tidings.  The reader will perceive, by the description we shall give that there was abundant reason for the sagacious burgher’s alarm.

The visage of the valet, at all times meagre and long, seemed extended to far more than its usual dimensions, the under jaw appearing fallen and trebly attenuated.  The light-blue protruding eyes were open to the utmost, and they expressed a certain confused wildness, that was none the less striking, for the painful expression of mental suffering, with which it was mingled.  Both hands were raised, with the palms outward; while the shoulders of the poor fellow were elevated so high, as entirely to destroy the little symmetry that Nature had bestowed on that particular part of his frame.

On the other hand, the look of the negro was guilty, dogged, and cunning.  His eye leered askance, seeming to wish to play around the person of his master, as, it will be seen, his language endeavored to play around his understanding.  The hands crushed the crown of a woollen hat between their fingers, and one of his feet described semicircles with its toe, by performing nervous evolutions on its heel.

“Well!” ejaculated Myndert, regarding each in turn.  “What news from the Canadas?—­Is the Queen dead, or has she restored the colony to the United Provinces?”

“Mam’selle Alide!” exclaimed, or rather groaned, Francois.

“The poor dumb beast!—­” muttered Euclid.

The knives and the forks fell from the hands of Myndert and his guest, as it were by a simultaneous paralysis.  The latter involuntarily arose; while the former planted his solid person still more firmly in its seat, like one who was preparing to meet some severe and expected shock, with all the physical resolution he could muster.

“—­What of my niece!—­What of my geldings?—­You have called upon Dinah?”

“Sans doute, Monsieur!”

“—­And you kept the keys of the stable?”

“I nebber let him go, at all!”

“—­And you bade her call her mistress?”

“She no make answair, de tout.”

“—­The animals were fed and watered, as I ordered?”

“’Em nebber take he food, better!”

“—­You entered the chamber of my niece, yourself, to awake her?”

“Monsieur a raison.”

“What the devil has befallen the innocent?”

“He lose he stomach quite, and I t’ink it great time ’fore it ebber come back.”

“—­Mister Francis, I desire to know the answer of Monsieur Barberie’s daughter.”

“Mam’selle no repond, Monsieur; pas un syllabe!”