"Ou, aye, me leddy, she's weel eneugh to look upon, if that was a'," replied the housekeeper dryly.
"Has she been here long?"
"Ever sin' Mr. Kenneth died, me leddy."
"Mr. Kenneth?" echoed Claudia, in an interrogative tone; for she remembered well that Kenneth was the name of Lord Vincent's younger brother, said to have been married to La Faustina; but she wished to hear more without, however, compromising herself by asking direct questions.
"Mr. Kenneth?" she repeated, looking into the housekeeper's face.
"Ou, aye, your leddyship; just the Honorable Kenneth Dugald, puir lad!"
"Why do you say poor lad?"
"I beg your leddyship's pardon. I mean just naething. It's on'y just a way I ha'."
Claudia reflected a moment; and then, though it went sorely against her pride so to speak to a dependent, she said:
"Mrs. Murdock, I am a very young and inexperienced woman; I have been motherless from my infancy; I am 'a stranger in a strange land'; unacquainted even with the members of my husband's family; my meeting with Mrs. Dugald here was unexpected, Lord Vincent never having mentioned her existence to me; my first impression of her was very unfavorable; some words you dropped deepened that impression; and now I feel that there are circumstances with which I ought to be made acquainted and with which you can acquaint me; will you do so?"