Here a very long pause ensued. How dismally quiet and deliberate was everything! The very servants, how noiselessly they waited! Everything done just when it was wanted, yet no hurry, or bustle, or noise; and they looked so composed--so much at their ease. He fancied that they had scarce anything else to do than look at him, and watch all his movements; which greatly embarrassed him, and he began to _hate_ them. He tried hard to inspirit himself with a reflection upon his own suddenly acquired and really great personal importance; absolute master of Ten Thousand a-Year, a relation of the great man at whose table he sat, and whose hired servants they were; but then his timorously raised eye would light, for an instant, upon the splendid _insignia_ of the earl; and he felt as oppressed as ever. What would he not have given for a few minutes' interval, and sense of complete freedom and independence? And were these to be his feelings ever hereafter? Was this the sort of tremulous apprehension of offence, and embarrassment as to his every move, to which he was to be doomed in high life? Oh that he had but been _born_ to it, like the earl and the Lady Cecilia! "Were you ever in the House of Lords, Mr. Titmouse?" inquired Lord Dreddlington, suddenly, after casting about for some little time for a topic on which he might converse with Titmouse. "No, my Lord, never--should most uncommon like to see it, my Lord"--replied Titmouse, eagerly. "Certainly, it is an impressive spectacle, sir, and well worth seeing," said the earl, solemnly. "I suppose, my Lord, your Lordship goes there every day?"