curve away from the eastern avenue of the Champ de Mars, with the bending of the river. They had still a carriage, too, though it was merely hired by the month, like the house, from the nearest livery-stables—a light, English-shaped barouche, with its pair of soot-black, long-legged Flemish horses, long-tailed and square-nosed, barrel-bodied and hollow-backed, and formally-stepping, which the owner called English also, for everything English seemed the rage: they were objects of no slight scorn, in that light, to Sir Godfrey’s groom, a stiff old trooper, who, with his duties towards his master’s horse, Black Rupert (the only possession they had brought from Stoke, save the title), had soon to unite that of coachman. Since besides Jackson himself, there was not merely an English housemaid, but there was young Mr Charles’s tutor, a grave, rather middle-aged bachelor of arts from Cambridge, and in clerical orders, who was to make up for the lost advantages of Eton, while he looked forward to the first opening in the curacy at Stoke: there was Miss Willoughby’s governess, a lady apparently also of middle age, whose perfect breeding and great accomplishments had made her acceptance of the position a favour, when the sudden necessity arose for the young lady’s leaving school; she had been in the highest families, and her conversational powers were of a superior order, so that there was a continual silent gratitude towards her on the part of Lady Willoughby. To the latter, indeed, whose whole heart lay in her family, these unavoidable changes had been a source of pure satisfaction, so far as she was concerned; compared with the privilege of having their children about them, educated under their own eye, expecting Frank so soon, too, nothing else was a deprivation; she merely missed England and English habits when some one else did, and had seen Stoke but once; only through the occasional abstracted looks of Sir Godfrey did she regret its postponement. As for the old French concierge at the gate, indeed, with his wife, family, and friends, she could have gladly spared them; but the concierge was indispensable—he _lived_ there—he went with the house, in fact; and at the very hint of his being superfluous, the old cracked-voiced porter had drawn himself up indignantly in his chair, while his bare-armed, black-browed wife had turned her leatherlike face up from her tub, looking daggers. True, the English family had, in the mean time, no visitors, but the concierge had;—_he_ was well known to his respectable neighbours; and, besides, it was possible that the misanthropy of the Chevalier Vilby and of Madame might be to some extent diminished; they would probably yet enter into society—all the previous tenants of the mansion had done so; Paris was, in reality, so attractive a capital. Such had been the response to the diplomacy of Jackson, who, having once been a French prisoner, far abroad, knew the language after a fashion of his own; and he received it