“Miss Willoughby,” interrupted Mrs Mason with a sudden air of severity, rustling and extending and drawing herself erect, “there are some questions too shocking and improper for us to ask?” Mr Thorpe, with a frightened look, sat dumb in his saddle; yet Mrs Mason professed to know history, and her charge must surely learn it: nay, unknown to them all, among the distant chateaus, palaces, and mansions they were gazing at, were St Germain’s in the blue eminence, which the great Louis had given to La Vallière when he wearied of her for Madame de Montespan; and Luciennes, where Madame du Barry was then living in fashionable retirement. But the one had been gallant, stately even in his vices; the royal patron of the other, in his dissipations, had at least been elegant. Probably Mr Thorpe’s confusion led him to a graver topic. “The chronicler I have lately perused,” he said, hastily, “is really worth study. Nothing can be so mournfully salutary. As the coffin was borne at night to yonder Notre Dame, and thence thereafter to the ancient town of St Denis, the streets were hung with black, and before every house was planted a tall lighted torch of white wax. First went the Capuchins, in their coarse sackcloth girt with ropes, bearing their huge cross, crowned with thorns—then five hundred poor men, under their bailiff, all in mourning as for a father—the magistrates and courts of justice, the parliament of Paris in rich sable furs, the high clergy in purple and gold—followed by the funeral car drawn by white horses, covered with black velvet crossed with white satin, and the long train of officers of the household.” The great knowledge of the tutor as to textile fabrics interested Mrs Mason. “Think of the expense!” Lady Willoughby said.