"A stranger?" asked my father.

Mary nodded, put her hand to her mouth, and burst into an irrepressible
giggle.

"If you please, sir," she began--but could get no farther.

My father was in a towering passion directly.

"Is the girl mad?" he shouted. "What is the meaning of this buffoonery?"

"Oh, sir--if you please, sir," ejaculated Mary, struggling with terror
and laughter together, "it's the gentleman, sir. He--he says, if you
please, sir, that his name is Almond Pudding!"

"Your pardon, Mademoiselle," said a plaintive voice. "Armand
Proudhine--le Chevalier Armand Proudhine, at your service."

Mary disappeared with her apron to her mouth, and subsided into distant
peals of laughter, leaving the Chevalier standing in the doorway.

He was a very little man, with a pinched and melancholy countenance, and
an eye as wistful as a dog's. His threadbare clothes, made in the
fashion of a dozen years before, had been decently mended in many
places. A paste pin in a faded cravat, and a jaunty cane with a
pinchbeck top, betrayed that he was still somewhat of a beau. His scant
gray hair was tied behind with a piece of black ribbon, and he carried
his hat under his arm, after the fashion of Elliston and the Prince
Regent, as one sees them in the colored prints of fifty years ago.