As for Mr. Franklin and Miss Rachel, they tortured nothing, I am glad to say.  They simply confined themselves to making a mess; and all they spoilt, to do them justice, was the panelling of a door.

Mr. Franklin’s universal genius, dabbling in everything, dabbled in what he called “decorative painting.”  He had invented, he informed us, a new mixture to moisten paint with, which he described as a “vehicle.”  What it was made of, I don’t know.  What it did, I can tell you in two words—­it stank.  Miss Rachel being wild to try her hand at the new process, Mr. Franklin sent to London for the materials; mixed them up, with accompaniment of a smell which made the very dogs sneeze when they came into the room; put an apron and a bib over Miss Rachel’s gown, and set her to work decorating her own little sitting-room—­called, for want of English to name it in, her “boudoir.”  They began with the inside of the door.  Mr. Franklin scraped off all the nice varnish with pumice-stone, and made what he described as a surface to work on.  Miss Rachel then covered the surface, under his directions and with his help, with patterns and devices—­griffins, birds, flowers, cupids, and such like—­copied from designs made by a famous Italian painter, whose name escapes me:  the one, I mean, who stocked the world with Virgin Maries, and had a sweetheart at the baker’s.  Viewed as work, this decoration was slow to do, and dirty to deal with.  But our young lady and gentleman never seemed to tire of it.  When they were not riding, or seeing company, or taking their meals, or piping their songs, there they were with their heads together, as busy as bees, spoiling the door.  Who was the poet who said that Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do?  If he had occupied my place in the family, and had seen Miss Rachel with her brush, and Mr. Franklin with his vehicle, he could have written nothing truer of either of them than that.

The next date worthy of notice is Sunday the fourth of June.

On that evening we, in the servants’ hall, debated a domestic question for the first time, which, like the decoration of the door, has its bearing on something that is still to come.

Seeing the pleasure which Mr. Franklin and Miss Rachel took in each other’s society, and noting what a pretty match they were in all personal respects, we naturally speculated on the chance of their putting their heads together with other objects in view besides the ornamenting of a door.  Some of us said there would be a wedding in the house before the summer was over.  Others (led by me) admitted it was likely enough Miss Rachel might be married; but we doubted (for reasons which will presently appear) whether her bridegroom would be Mr. Franklin Blake.

That Mr. Franklin was in love, on his side, nobody who saw and heard him could doubt.  The difficulty was to fathom Miss Rachel.  Let me do myself the honour of making you acquainted with her; after which, I will leave you to fathom for yourself—­if you can.