"Oh, my dear, he knows nothing about it!" she said. "Bless me, the earl is too great a person to know anything about the goings on of such humble individuals as you and me. I am my own mistress in my own apartments, my dear, and am quite at liberty to have my own granddaughter stay with me."
"Of course," said the girl quickly. "And is he nice?—the earl, I mean."
"Nice!" repeated the old lady, as if there were something disrespectful in the word. "Well, 'nice' is scarcely the word—I've only seen him half a dozen times since I came, so I can't say what he's like; but he was very pleasant then—in his way, my dear."
Margaret opened her eyes.
"Not half-a-dozen times in five years? Then he doesn't live here always?"
"Not always. He is in Spain or Ireland some parts of the year, but he lives at the Court during most of the summer. You see, my dear, great folks like the Earl of Ferrers keep to themselves more than humble people. The earl has his own apartments—you can see them from the drive; they run along the terrace—and his own particular servants. Excepting Mr. Stibbings, the butler, and Mr. Larkhall, his valet, and the footmen, none of us see anything of his lordship."
"He is quite like a king, then?" said the girl musingly.
"Quite," assented the old lady approvingly; "quite like a king, as you say; and everybody in Leyton Ferrers regards him as one. Why, the queen herself couldn't be more looked up to or feared!"
The girl pondered over this. You don't meet many earls and dukes in the National Art Schools, and this one possessed an atmosphere of novelty for Margaret.
"And does he live here all alone?" she asked.