So, while I was labouring to interpret, Lady Ommaney exclaimed, ’But why should I not come and show your mother?’

‘Ah! if you would, Madame, that would verily be goodness,’ returned Clement in his best English.

Well, I knew Eustace and Meg would have called me self-willed, when my mother had once made such a noise about our taking shelter from Broussel’s mob at the Maison Darpent; but this was a mere visit of charity and necessity, for it was quite certain that the two good ladies could never have understood one another without me to interpret for them.  Moreover, when Clement Darpent had rescued my sister from the mob, and was always watching to protect us, we surely owed him some return of gratitude, and it would have been mere bourgeois.

So I went with Lady Ommaney, and was refreshed by the sight of that calm face of Madame Darpent, which she always seemed to me to have borrowed from the angels, and which only grew the sweeter and more exalted the greater was her trouble, as if she imbibed more and more of heavenly grace in proportion to her needs.

We did our best, Lady Ommaney and I, to show and explain, but I do not think it was to much purpose.  The materials were not like our English ones, and though mother and son were both full of thanks and gratitude, Madame Darpent was clearly not half convinced that what was good for an Englishman was good for a Frenchman, and even if she had been more fully persuaded, I do not think her husband would have endured any foreign treatment.

When we took leave she said, ‘Permettez moi, ma chere demoiselle,’ and would have kissed my hand, but I threw my arms round her neck embraced her, for there was something in her face that won my heart more than it had ever gone out to any woman I ever saw; and I saw by Lady Ommaney’s whole face and gesture that she thought a great sorrow was coming on the good woman.  I believe she was rather shocked, for she was a Huguenot by birth, and a Jansenist by conviction, and thus she did not approve of any strong signs of affection and emotion; but nevertheless she was touched and very kind and good, and she returned my embrace by giving me her sweet and solemn blessing.

And as he put me into the carriage, Clement, that foolish Clement, must needs thank me, with tears in his eyes, for my goodness to her.

‘What do you mean, sir,’ said I, ’by thanking me for what I delight in and value as a daughter?’

Whereupon I, equally foolish, knew what I had said, and felt my face and neck grow crimson all over, and what must he do, but kiss my hand in a rapture.

And all the way home I could hear old Lady Ommaney murmuring to herself, quite unconscious that she was speaking aloud, ’My stars!  I hope I have not done wrong!  What will my Lady Walwyn say?  Not that he would be altogether a bad match for her after our notions.  Her father was only a baron, and theirs is a good old family of the citizen sort, but then my Lady Walwyn is a Frenchwoman, and thinks all that is not noble the dirt under her feet.’