in grim silence. The truth was, the gossipping receptions at the little lodge were somewhat troublesome, and seemed to concern themselves greatly with the affairs of the household within, had there been nothing else than the general interest taken in it by the adjacent windows, or the popularity of the whole family, collectively or individually, which had sometimes accompanied their exit or entrance with applause from crowds of street children—a prestige which had as evidently deserted them afterwards, to be replaced by tenfold scrutiny of a less partial kind, not unmingled with sundry trivial annoyances. Nor, although it resulted, with Lady Willoughby’s usual easy disposition, in her employing the services of the porter’s daughter within the house, did the one parent open the gate with less sullen dignity, and the other seem less jealously watchful against some abstraction of the furniture, or nocturnal evasion of the rent. Nevertheless, Paris itself was not more restless or more lively than the spirits of the young people in their first enjoyment of its scenes. The earliest summer had begun to lighten up what was already bright with heat that came before the leaves, quickly as these were bursting into verdure along every avenue; and when the dust is hovering in the sun, when the level light streams along causeway and pavement, crossed by cooler vistas, when the morning water-carts go slowly hissing past, the shopmen sprinkling their door-steps, putting out their canopies, setting their windows right—with the moist smell of market-carts still in the air, the stray fragrance of fruit-stalls near—steeples shining high beyond the steel-blue roofs, the dazzling skylight panes,—chambermaids looking far out from upper windows, long perspectives of architecture blending, and a vast hollow azure over all, ere the smoke is gathered, and before the street-cries are confused, or the growing rush of sounds has become oppressive in the heat—then who remembers not the fairy feeling of a city to youth! It is when they still look to life from under protection, with no experience, nothing like the need of directing for themselves; but most of all from a simple household, used to temperate pleasures, and to the sort of kindness that rests more in purpose than upon indulgence; the city need only be Paris, with sights as foreign as the language, to crown that morning cup of enchantment to its brim. For the two younger members of the family it wore all its charm: Rose Willoughby had seen little more of the world in her boarding-school, at sixteen, than if it had been a nunnery; while Charles, who was younger, had been fancying his knowledge of life at Westminster school and Eton rather uncommon;—so that every morning set them astir early, watching at the windows, impatient to get breakfast-time past, to have those studies severally over, in which, so far as the lad’s tutor was concerned, Mr Thorpe bore the chief difficulties of the task.