"Is there any one else?"
"There's Mr Peeper's assistant, Mark Lutter—a clever man, and a great scholar. I hate scholars, so he dines in the servants' hall, or far down the table—below the salt."
"Are you serious?" enquired Jane.
"Do you not like scholars?"
"What's the use of them? I never could see what they were good for—and, besides, Mr Peeper hates them too."
"Then why does he keep this man as his assistant?"
"Because if he didn't, the fellow would rebel."
"Well, you could turn him off."
"We never turn any body off at Belfront Castle. If they go of their own accord, we punish them for it if we can—if they stay, they are welcome. Mr Peeper must look to it, or Lutter will make a disturbance."
"What a curious place this castle must be," thought Jane, "and what odd people they are that live in it!" She asked no more questions, but determined to restrain her curiosity till she could satisfy it on the spot; and, luckily, she had not long to wait. Next day they started on their homeward way. As they drew nearer their destination, Jane's anxiety to gain the first glimpse of her future home increased with every mile. She had, of course, formed many fancy pictures of it in her own mind; and, as love lent the brush and most obligingly compounded the colours, there can be no doubt they made out a very captivating landscape of it between them.