About two years and a half before our history opened, when Heriot was
absent upon an expedition to the Continent, he sent special orders to
his sister and his cash-keeper, directing that the Foljambe apartments
should be fitted up handsomely, though plainly, for the reception of a
lady, who would make them her residence for some time; and who would
live more or less with his own family according to her pleasure. He
also directed, that the necessary repairs should be made with secrecy,
and that as little should be said as possible upon the subject of his
letter.
When the time of his return came nigh, Aunt Judith and the household
were on the tenter-hooks of impatience. Master George came, as he had
intimated, accompanied by a lady, so eminently beautiful, that, had it
not been for her extreme and uniform paleness, she might have been
reckoned one of the loveliest creatures on earth. She had with her an
attendant, or humble companion, whose business seemed only to wait
upon her. This person, a reserved woman, and by her dialect a
foreigner, aged about fifty, was called by the lady Monna Paula, and
by Master Heriot, and others, Mademoiselle Pauline. She slept in the
same room with her patroness at night, ate in her apartment, and was
scarcely ever separated from her during the day.
These females took possession of the nunnery of the devout Abbess,
and, without observing the same rigorous seclusion, according to the
letter, seemed wellnigh to restore the apartments to the use to which
they had been originally designed.
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