The doctor had scarce finished his meal before he hastened with an apology to attend upon his patient; and almost immediately after I was myself summoned and ushered up the great staircase and along interminable corridors to the bedside of my great-uncle the Count.

You are to think that up to the present moment I had not set eyes on this formidable personage, only on the evidences of his wealth and kindness.

You are to think besides that I had heard him miscalled and abused from my earliest childhood up.

The first of the _emigres_ could never expect a good word in the society in which my father moved.

Even yet the reports I received were of a doubtful nature; even Romaine had drawn of him no very amiable portrait; and as I was ushered into the room, it was a critical eye that I cast on my great-uncle.