But on this occasion there was something more – a something almost indelicate, by which, taken in combination with other little matters almost as trifling, my attention was excited most curiously.

It will be easily understood by my judicious readers that I was naturally an adept where ladies were concerned, and had in my capacity as a young footman considerably brightened and improved any previous ideas I may have possessed. And, in this case, I was sharp enough to see that though Miss Courtney was well dressed, she was not very well dressed. That is to say, though her clothes were of rich fashionable materials, they looked as if they had not been fitted by a first-class modiste, or put on by a lady's-maid who was up to her business.

Then she did not step into the carriage like a young lady. She grasped the side-handle and sprang in without touching my arm in the first place. In the second place I have noticed that young ladies in getting in and out of a carriage, however modest, and even prudish they may be, are by no means averse to display their pretty ankles and even – well, Excelsior, up higher – a little peep of legs besides.

In fact, I have seen the mossy grotto itself when the drawers happened to favour me.

Well, there is nothing improper in that, and decidedly nothing unpleasant.

But Miss Courtney exhibited her lower limbs up to the knee, making not the slightest attempt to conceal them, and very fine legs they were too – only, somehow – somehow they did not appear to me like young ladies' legs.

There is a marked difference in this respect, I perfectly well know. For example, I may say without vanity that I have a very handsome pair of legs, well – and so has Mademoiselle Justine; but then there is a great difference.

"Of course there is!" I fancy I hear my reader suggesting.