"Sir Marmaduke is an infidel, Miss Lexden," said Charley. "Send in your tender, Stone, and Goupil's Medoc shall be a fresh incentive to the virtuous Civil Servants!" "Let him rave, my dear!" said Sir Marmaduke; "let him rave, as your idol Mr. Tennyson says. What he calls work, I call make-believe humbug. What I call work, is what my godson--what's his name---Churchill (what the deuce has he gone away for?) does, night after night, grinding his headpiece--that sort of thing." "What Churchill is that, sir?" asked Charley. "Mr. Churchill is a literary man, I believe," said Miss Townshend; "wonderfully clever--writes, you know, and all that." "Oh, Frank Churchill! I know him," replied Beresford. "Has he been down here?" "Yes; he only left this morning." "He seems a very good sort of fellow," said Lyster generously, for he didn't quite like the tone of Beresford's voice, and did not at all like the manner in which the Commissioner was paying quiet attention to Miss Townshend. "He's made himself a general favourite in a very short time." "Yes, that he has," said Miss Townshend; "he's very clever, and not at all conceited, and--oh! he's so nice." Barbara said nothing. "I had a few words with him about the money-article yesterday," said Mr. Townshend; "but I must say his views were scarcely so defined as I could have wished." Beresford had listened attentively to these remarks. He thought he perceived a certain _tendresse_ in Miss Townshend's manner of speaking of Churchill, which did not at all accord with his present views. So he said, "No, Mr. Townshend; that's not Churchill's peculiar line. He's a poor man, though, as you say, Miss Townshend, a clever one. And he has some object in working hard, for he's going to be married." "To be married?" exclaimed Miss Townshend, looking across at Barbara. "To be married?" exclaimed Barbara, flushing scarlet. The next instant she turned deadly cold, and could have bitten her tongue out for having spoken. "Well, well!" said old Miss Lexden, who up to this time had been engaged in a confidential culinary chat with Mrs. Vincent; "that's always the way. Poor thing: I pity the young woman. These sort of persons always stay out all night, and ill-treat their wives, and all that kind of thing." "Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Vincent; "leg-of-mutton _ménage_ and batter-pudding, perhaps; no soup or fish. Dear, dear! what unwholesome things these love-marriages are!" "But nobody said that it is a love match," said Miss Townshend. "Perhaps the lady is an heiress, whom Mr. Churchill has captivated by his talent." "Yes," growled Sir Marmaduke, with a sardonic grin; "an heiress who has been struck with his articles on the Reformatory question, or has become completely dazzled by the lucidity of his views on the Maynooth Grant. A leader-writer in a daily newspaper is just the romantic youth that heiresses fall in love with."