Our Lady of Darkness by Bernard Capes — Read

Had Lord Murk been of a present inclination less reserved and withdrawing, he had months before found easy access to the presence of the merry maid, whose little red heels seemed now, as it were, to have taken his misogamy by the tail. For, indeed, when at last he sought, he found this young lady's identity established in a word. She was neither more nor less (with a reservation in respect to the gossips) than the adopted daughter of a very notable _gouvernante_ to a royal family; and she happened to have already sojourned in Bury some six months, during which he, the hermit-crab, had chosen to tuck himself away apathetic into his shell.

Ned had, of course, heard of the not altogether peaceful invasion of the drowsy little town by one particularly hybrid company of emigrants that was, in fact, the travelling suite of Mademoiselle d'Orléans, whom the Duke her father had, for safety, shipped to England towards the latter end of the previous year. The importance of mademoiselle's advent was signified rather in her rank than her maturity, which presented her as a lymphatic little body, some fifteen years of age, with pink eye-places and a somewhat pathetic trick of expression. But, if her title proclaimed her nominal suzerainty over the _valetaille_ that, in its habits of volubility and swagger, was to inflame the popular sense of decorum by-and-by to a rather feverish pitch of resentment, the very practical conduct of the expedition was in the hands of that wonderful woman whom an irreverent virtuosity had entitled "Rousseau's hen."