As for Madeline, accustomed, as we know, to four Windsor chairs, two tables, a shabby rag of Kidderminster carpet, and a horsehair sofa with a lame leg, her brain was giddy as she endeavoured to realize that she was to be mistress of these treasures, and to preside over this palatial establishment. Carriages and horses found places in stables and coach-houses; a troop of well-trained servants populated the house. There was a stately lady housekeeper, a French chef, a French maid for Madeline, three footmen in mulberry and silver buttons, and a butler whom one might have mistaken for a dean, and whose deportment and dignity were of such proportions as to overawe all timid natures, and of very high value in his master’s eyes. Madeline shrank from her lady’s maid, but she was a necessity--_noblesse oblige_. She did not wish the sharp-eyed Parisienne to spy out the nakedness of the land, as far as her own wardrobe was concerned, and was at many a shift to postpone her arrival until she had garments more befitting her background and her father’s purse. Indeed he had not been pleased with her gowns, “they looked cheap,” he had remarked with a frown. “Is that all you have, Madeline, that black thing?” he asked rather querulously one evening, as they stood in the drawing-room awaiting Lord Anthony, and a friend. “Yes, papa; and it is nearly new,” she said in a tone of deprecation. “It does very well for the present, and I must wear it out.” “Wear out! Stuff and nonsense!” irritably. “One would think you had a shingle loose. I really sometimes fancy, when I hear you talking of the price of this and that, and so on, and _economy_, that you have known what it is to be poor--poor as Job! Whereas, by George! you have never known what it is to want for a single thing ever since you were born. You have as much idea of poverty as your prize black poodle has!” Had she? Had she not known what it was to frequent pawnshops, to battle with wolfish want, to experience not merely the pleasures of a healthy appetite, but the actual pangs of painful hunger. Oh, had she not known what it was to be poor! She gave a little half-choked nervous laugh, and carefully avoided her father’s interrogative eyes. “I’ll give you a cheque to-morrow,” he resumed, “and do go to some good dressmaker, and get yourself some smart clothes. Lady Rachel, Lord Tony’s sister, is going to call, ask her to take you to some first-class place, and choose half a dozen gowns. I really mean it; and put this thing,” flicking her fifty-shilling costume with a contemptuous finger and thumb, “behind the fire. You are not like your mother; _she_ made the money fly. However, she was always well turned out. I don’t want you to ruin me; but there is a medium in all things. What is the good of a daughter who is a beauty if she won’t set herself off?” “Do you _really_ think me pretty, father?” she asked, rather timidly.