But his selfishness never permitted him to perceive that they made daily sacrifices on his account; that they lived on the commonest fare, pretending they liked it, whilst he enjoyed his flesh or fowl; and sat up late at night to recopy some faded old sermon, whilst he played cards with his friends in the _salle à manger_. Were he in the humour for it, he would keep them running up and down stairs on errands for him all day long, until they were quite faint with fatigue—especially Ange, who, notwithstanding her bright, fugitive colour, was, like most English girls reared on the Continent, anything but strong. And when he had kept them up long beyond their usual hour for rest, he would suddenly remember that a surplice, or a shirt, or something equally important, must be ‘got up’ by the following afternoon, and compel the poor children to be out of bed again the first thing in the morning, in order to get the washing and starching and ironing over before the more important duties of the day began. Ange had said once that few people could ‘come down’ as gracefully as her father had. I used to think, on the contrary, that he had never learned how to ‘come down’ at all, but was like a spoilt child who will insist upon having all he wants, never mind what others may suffer in consequence! His selfishness was especially apparent in the little trouble that he took to give his daughters any amusement. There were so few excitements in St. Pucelle; the days slipped away one after another in such a monotonous round of uneventfulness, that it was cruel to debar these girls of even one pleasure which they might have legitimately enjoyed. Yet they might have been two little nuns, for the seclusion in which he kept them. Except to visit the poor or to walk in the fields, they scarcely ever left the house, and days sometimes elapsed without their putting their feet outside of it. Their visit to the Château des Roses had been a real treat to them. They had talked of it for hours beforehand and for weeks after; but though the Baron de Nesselrode had begged Mr. Lovett over and over again to take us there for another day, he had put it off for his own business, until the matter had died away. On more than one occasion, during my residence in St. Pucelle, a little dance was got up by the visitors in the principal hotel, and the English curé’s pretty daughters were asked each time to be present.