As soon as the melancholy meal was over the two ladies separated, the Marchioness going up-stairs among her own children. A more careful, more affectionate, perhaps, I may say, a more idolatrous mother never lived. Every little want belonging to them,--for even little lords have wants,--was a care to her. To see them washed and put in and out of their duds was perhaps the greatest pleasure of her life. To her eyes they were pearls of aristocratic loveliness; and, indeed, they were fine healthy bairns, clean-limbed, bright-eyed, with grand appetites, and never cross as long as they were allowed either to romp and make a noise, or else to sleep. Lord Frederic, the eldest, was already in words of two syllables, and sometimes had a bad time with them. Lord Augustus was the owner of great ivory letters of which he contrived to make playthings. Lord Gregory had not as yet been introduced to any of the torments of education. There was an old English clergyman attached to the family who was supposed to be their tutor, but whose chief duty consisted in finding conversation for the Marquis when there was no one else to talk to him. There was also a French governess and a Swiss maid. But as they both learned English quicker than the children learned French, they were not serviceable for the purpose at first intended. The Marchioness had resolved that her children should talk three or four languages as fluently as their own, and that they should learn them without any of the agonies generally incident to tuition. In that she had not as yet succeeded. She seated herself for a few minutes among the boxes and portmanteaus in the midst of which the children were disporting themselves prior to their final withdrawal to bed. No mother was ever so blessed,--if only, if only! "Mamma," said Lord Frederic, "where's Jack?" "Jack" absolutely was intended to signify Lord Hampstead. "Fred, did not I say that you should not call him Jack?" "He say he is Jack," declared Lord Augustus, rolling up in between his mother's knees with an impetus which would have upset her had she not been a strong woman and accustomed to these attacks. "That is only because he is good-natured, and likes to play with you. You should call him Hampstead." "Mamma, wasn't he christianed?" asked the eldest.