Nevertheless, ignorant as the lower regions were in general of what was passing in the upper, occasionally rumors began to reach the kitchen that "Master had been a-blowing up Missis, rather!" And once, after the solemn dinner, with three footmen to wait on two people, was over, Elizabeth, passing through the hall, caught the said domestics laughing together, and saying it was "as good as a play; cat and dog was nothing to it." After which "the rows up stairs" became a favorite joke in the servants' hall. But still Mr. Ascott went out daily after breakfast, and came home to dinner; and Mrs. Ascott spent the morning in her private sitting room, or "boudoir," as she called it; lunched, and drove out in her handsome carriage, with her footman behind; dressed elegantly for dinner, and presided at her own table with an air of magnificent satisfaction in all things. She had perfectly accommodated herself to her new position; and if under her satins and laces beat a solitary, dissatisfied, or aching heart, it was nobody's business but her own. At least, she kept up the splendid sham with a most creditable persistency. But all shams are dangerous things. Be the surface ever so smooth and green, it will crack sometimes, and a faint wreath of smoke betray the inward volcano. The like had happened once or twice, as on the day when the men-servants were so intensely amused. Also Elizabeth, when putting in order her mistress's bedroom, which was about the hour Mr. Ascott left for the city, had several times seen Mrs. Ascott come in there suddenly, white and trembling. Once, so agitated was she, that Elizabeth had brought her a glass of water; and instead of being angry or treating her with the distant dignity which she had always kept up her mistress had said, almost in the old Stowbury tone, "Thank you, Elizabeth." However, Elizabeth had the wisdom to take no notice, but to slip from the room, and keep her own counsel. At last one day the smouldering domestic earthquake broke out. There was "a precious good row," the footman suspected, at the breakfast-table; and after breakfast, Master, without waiting for the usual attendance of that functionary, with his hat and gloves and a Hansom cab had flung himself out at the hall door, slamming it after him with a noise that startled the whole house. Shortly afterward "Missis's" bell had rung violently, and she had been found lying on the floor of her bedroom in a dead faint, her maid, a foolish little Frenchwoman, screaming over her.