When relations of this kind in one family begin to be _à tort et à travers_, there is no end to the horrible complications arising out of them. Mrs. Churchill attempted to initiate Barbara into the mysteries of housekeeping, and the art of successfully combating nefarious tradesmen; but the success which attended the old lady's efforts may be guessed from Barbara's interview with Mrs. Harding. She tried to get Barbara to walk out with her; but Barbara had not been accustomed to walk in London streets, and was timid at crossings,--which made the old lady irate; and was frightened at the way in which men stared, and on some occasions spoke out unreservedly their opinions of her beauty. She had liked the outspoken admiration of the crowd, as she sat well forward in the carriage on drawing-room days; but then she knew that she had Jeames with his long cane in reserve in case of need; though I doubt whether Jeames would have been more useful in case of actual attack than old Mrs. Churchill, who invariably resented these unsolicited compliments to her daughter-in-law with a snort of defiance, and who usually carried a stout umbrella with a ferule at the end, which would have made a very awkward weapon, and which she would have wielded with right good will. Misunderstandings were constant: after the first few occasions of their meeting, Barbara did not ask Mrs. Churchill to the house for fear of appearing formal; whereupon the old lady, when Frank called at her lodgings, asked what she had done to be exiled from her son's house. Pacified and settled as to this point, the old lady, to show her forgiveness, called in so frequently, that Barbara told her husband she knew her housekeeping was not perfection; but that she had not expected a system of _espionnage_, which was evidently kept on her by his mother. When Mrs. Churchill dined at their house, Barbara, for fear of appearing extravagant, would have a very simple joint and pudding; whereupon the old lady would afterwards tell Mrs. Harding, or some other friend, that "Heaven alone knew where Frank's money went--not on their dinners, my dear, for they're positively mean." Nor with her husband's friends did Barbara make a very favourable impression. They admired her, of course; to withhold that tribute was impossible; but they were so utterly different in manner and expression, had such different topics of conversation and such totally opposite opinions to any thing she had ever seen or heard, that she sat in silence before them; uttered vague and irrational replies to questions put to her while her thoughts were far away, smiled feebly at wrong times, and so conducted herself, that Mr. M'Malthus, a clever Scotchman, who was worming his way into literature, and was at that time getting a name for blunt offensive sayings (an easily earned capital, on which many a man has lived for years), was reported to have remarked that "a prettier woman or bigger fool than Mrs. Churchill was not often seen."