_Once More at Dacre_
MISS DACRE, although she was prepared to greet the Duke of St. James
with cordiality, did not anticipate with equal pleasure the arrival
of the page and the jaeger. Infinite had been the disturbances they had
occasioned during their first visit, and endless the complaints of the
steward and the housekeeper. The men-servants were initiated in
the mysteries of dominoes, and the maid-servants in the tactics of
flirtation. Karlstein was the hero of the under-butlers, and even the
trusty guardian of the cellar himself was too often on the point of
obtaining the German's opinion of his master's German wines. Gaming, and
drunkenness, and love, the most productive of all the teeming causes
of human sorrow, had in a week sadly disordered the well-regulated
household of Castle Dacre, and nothing but the impetuosity of our hero
would have saved his host's establishment from utter perdition. Miss
Dacre was, therefore, not less pleased than surprised when the britzska
of the Duke of St. James discharged on a fine afternoon, its noble
master, attended only by the faithful Luigi, at the terrace of the
Castle.
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