However, the last embrace was given, and the ladies were all packed in, while the Abbe with his breast heaving with sobs, his big hat in one hand, and a huge silk pocket-handkerchief in the other, did not forget his manners, but waved to Arthur to ascend the steps first.  ‘Secretary, not guest.  You must remember that another time,’ said Lord Nithsdale.  ’God bless you, my dear lad, and bring you safe back to bonny Scotland, a true and leal heart.’

Arthur wrung his friend’s hand once more, and disappeared into the vehicle; Nurse Honor made one more rush, and uttered another ‘Ohone’ over Abbe Phelim, who followed into the carriage; the door was shut; there was a last wail over ‘Lanty, the sunbeam of me heart,’ as he climbed to the box seat; the harness jingled; coachman and postilions cracked their whips, the impatient horses dashed out at the porte cochere; and Arthur, after endeavouring to dispose of his legs, looked about him, and saw, opposite to him, Madame de Bourke lying back in the corner in a transport of grief, one arm round her daughter, and her little son lying across her lap, both sobbing and crying; and on one side of him the Abbe, sunk in his corner, his yellow silk handkerchief over his face; on the other, Mademoiselle Julienne, who was crying too, but with more moderation, perhaps more out of propriety or from infection than from actual grief:  at any rate she had more of her senses about her than any one else, and managed to dispose of the various loose articles that had been thrown after the travellers, in pockets and under cushions.  Arthur would have assisted, but only succeeded in treading on various toes and eliciting some small shrieks, which disconcerted him all the more, and made Mademoiselle Julienne look daggers at him, as she relieved her lady of little Ulysse, lifting him to her own knee, where, as he was absolutely exhausted with crying, he fell asleep.

Arthur hoped the others would do the same, and perhaps there was more dozing than they would have confessed; but whenever there was a movement, and some familiar object in the streets of Paris struck the eye of Madame, the Abbe, or Estelle, there was a little cry, and they went off on a fresh score.

‘Poor wretched weak creatures!’ he said to himself, as he thought the traditions of Scottish heroic women in whose heroism he had gloated.  And yet he was wrong:  Madame de Bourke was capable of as much resolute self-devotion as any of the ladies on the other side of the Channel, but tears were a tribute required by the times.  So she gave way to them—­just as no doubt the women of former days saw nothing absurd in bottling them.

Arthur’s position among all these weeping figures was extremely awkward, all the more so that he carried his sword upright between his legs, not daring to disturb the lachrymose company enough to dispose of it in the sword case appropriated to weapons.  He longed to take out the little pocket Virgil, which Lord Nithsdale had given him, so as to have some occupation for his eyes, but he durst not, lest he should be thought rude, till, at a halt at a cabaret to water the horses, the striking of a clock reminded the Abbe that it was the time for reading the Hours, and when the breviary was taken out, Arthur thought his book might follow it.