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'Above twenty years, your ladyship, on the next feast of St Jero, and almost alone,

too? I understood, that the chateau had been shut up for some years?'

'Yes, madam, it was for many years after my late lord, the Count, went

to the wars; but it is above twenty years, since I and e, and has of late been so lonely,

that ere lost in it, and, after soe at the end of the woods, near some of the tenants, and came to

look after the chateau, every now and then When my lord returned to

France from the wars, he took a dislike to the place, and never caain, and so he was satisfied with our reed froht my late lady used to take in it! I well remember when she

calected so

long, and is gone into such decay! I shall never see those days again!'

The Countess appearing to be sohtless

siretted former times, Dorothee

added--'But the chateau will now be inhabited, and cheerful again; not

all the world could tempt me to live in it alone'

'Well, the experiment will not be made, I believe,' said the Countess,

displeased that her own silence had been unable to awe the loquacity of

this rustic old housekeeper, now spared from further attendance by the

entrance of the Count, who said he had been viewing part of the

chateau, and found, that it would require considerable repairs and some

alterations, before it would be perfectly comfortable, as a place of