“Father mostly looks angry,” Henriette complained, “and mother is always unhappy, if she is not laughing and talking in the midst of company; and neither of them ever seems to want me. I wish I was grown up, so that I could be maid of honour to the Queen or the Duchess, and live at Whitehall. Mademoiselle told me that there is always life and pleasure at Court.” “Your father does not love the Court, dearest, and mademoiselle should be wiser than to talk to you of such things, when she is here to teach you dancing and French literature.” “Mademoiselle” was a governess lately imported from Paris, recommended by Mademoiselle Scudéry, and full of high-flown ideas expressed in high-flown language. All Paris had laughed at Molière’s _Precieuses Ridicules_; but the Précieuses themselves, and their friends, protested that the popular farce was aimed only at the low-born imitators of those great ladies who had originated the school of superfine culture and romantic aspirations. “Sapho” herself, in tracing her own portrait with a careful and elaborate pencil, told the world how shamefully she had been imitated by the spurious middle-class Saphos, who set up their salons, and vied with the sacred house of Rambouillet, and the privileged coterie of the Rue de Temple. Lady Fareham had not ceased to believe in her dear, plain, witty Scudéry, and was delighted to secure a governess of her choosing, whereby Papillon, who loved freedom and idleness, and hated lessons of all kinds, was set down to write themes upon chivalry, politeness, benevolence, pride, war, and other abstractions; or to fill in bouts-rimés, by way of enlarging her acquaintance with the French language, which she had chattered freely all her life. Mademoiselle insisted upon all the niceties of phraseology as discussed in the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre. There had been a change of late in Fareham’s manner to his sister-in-law, a change refreshing to her troubled spirit as mercy, that gentle dew from heaven, to the criminal. He had been kinder; and though he spent very few of his hours with the women of his household, he had talked to Angela somewhat in the friendly tone of those fondly remembered days at Chilton, when he had taught her to row and ride, to manage a spirited palfrey and fly a falcon, and had been in all things her mentor and friend. He seemed less oppressed with gloom as time went on, but had his sullen fits still, and, after being kind and courteous to wife and sister, and playful with his children, would leave them suddenly, and return no more to the saloon or drawing-room that evening. Yet on the whole the sky was lightening. He ignored Hyacinth’s resentment, endured her pettishness, and was studiously polite to her. It was on Lady Fareham’s visiting-day, deep in that very severe winter, that some news was told her which came like a thunder-clap, and which it needed all the weak soul’s power of self-repression to suffer without swooning or hysterics.