"Oh, my mother's servant, old Lucy; been with her since her girlhood. She has not prepossessing manners, but she's a faithful creature. You'll make much of her, dearest." "Nothing, I should hope; she's too horrible! What a disagreeable colour this paper is, and what a horribly prim carpet! I'll take off my things, Frank, at once, and come down to dinner; I'm rather faint." Churchill lit a candle, and preceded her up the stairs--at the carpet on which Barbara made a despairing shrug--to the best bedroom, erst his mother's, where stood the heavy four-post bed, the old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe, the dingy pictures of sacred subjects--all the furniture just as he recollected it for years. It was rather a ghastly room, certainly; and when Frank had left her, to go down and pay the cabman and see about the luggage, she glanced nervously round, and burying her face in her hands, burst into a flood of tears. Thus her husband found her when he returned. He a once rushed up to her, and asked her what was the matter; but she replied that she was a little over-fatigued, and would be better after the dinner and rest. "That's well," said Frank cheerfully; "you must not give way now, darling; recollect you're _at home_." At which words, strange though it may appear, Barbara's sobs were redoubled. CHAPTER XVII. MINING OPERATIONS. No sooner was the Churchills' wedding safely over than all further reason for keeping on the establishment at Bissett Grange was at an end, and the party broke up at once. Sir Marmaduke went straight to Paris, and took up his quarters at Meurice's, according to his annual custom, to the disgust of Gumble, who detested all things "forring" with that pious horror always to be found in the British serving-class. The old gentleman knew Paris better perhaps than he knew London, and was thoroughly well known in the best circles of Parisian society; his eccentricity, _quelque chose bizarre_, which distinguished him from the ordinary run of English visitors, made him popular with the young people, while his perfectly polished manner to women, the unmistakable not-to-be-acquired high-breeding of the true gentleman, combined with his ready wit and biting sarcasm, both expressed in perfect French, rendered him a favourite with his coevals. To the Faubourg and its inhabitants, however, his visits were principally confined; he had never yielded allegiance to the Imperial Court, and used to speak of it and its august head in a very disparaging manner. "Gad, sir!" he would say in the smoke-room of Meurice's, after his return from the Français or from some grand reception,--"Gad, sir! I've a very low opinion of your what d'ye call him?--your Emperor! met him often when he was in England,--at Gore House, and two or three other places; always found him a silent, moody, stupid fellow--that's it! a stupid fellow, by Jove!--tries to make out that he holds his tongue to think the more; like the monkey, you know.