While I was employing among them my time and genius with equal dignity and profit, one of the servants informed me that a man at the gate wished to see me--and alone.
Somewhat surprised, I followed the servant out of the room into the great hall, and desired him to bid the stranger attend me there.

In a few minutes, a small, dark man, dressed between gentility and meanness, made his appearance.

He greeted me with great respect, and presented a letter, which, he said, he was charged to deliver into my own hands, "with," he added in a low tone, "a special desire that none should, till I had carefully read it, be made acquainted with its contents." I was not a little startled by this request; and, withdrawing to one of the windows, broke the seal.

A letter, enclosed in the envelope, in the Abbe's own handwriting, was the first thing that met my eyes.

At that instant the Abbe himself rushed into the hall.