lly in diplomacy. He
had acted as secretary, interpreter, and general factotum, to a whole
succession of ambassadors, and thus his little loge, as he called it,
had become something of a home. His wife had once or twice before had
to take charge of young ladies, French or English, who were confided to
the embassy, and she had a guest chamber for them, a small room, but
with an oriel window overhanging the Thames and letting in the southern
sun, so as almost to compensate for the bareness of the rest, where
there was nothing but a square box-bed, a chest, and a few toilette
essentials, to break upon the dulness of the dark wainscoted walls.
Madame herself came to sleep with her guest, for lonely nights were
regarded with dread in those times, and indeed she seemed to regard it
as her duty never to lose sight of her charge for a moment.

Madame de Salmonnet's proper bed-chamber was the only approach to this
little room, but that mattered the less as it was also the parlour!
The bed, likewise a box, was in the far-off recesses, and the family
were up and astir long before the November sun. Dressed Madame could
scarcely be called--the costume in which she assisted Babette and queer
wizened old Pierrot in doing the morning's work, horrified Cicely, used
as she was to Mistress Susan's scrupulous neatness. Downstairs there
was a sort of office room of Monsieur's, where the family meals were
taken, and behind it an exceedingly small kitchen, where Madame and
Pierrot performed marvels of cookery, surpassing those of Queen Mary's
five cooks.

Cicely longed to assist in them, and after a slight demur, she was
permitted to do so, chiefly because her duenna could not otherwise
watch her and the confections at the same time. Cis could never make
out whether it was as princess or simply as maiden that she was so
closely watched, for Madame bristled and swelled like a mother cat
about to spring at a strange dog, if any gentleman of the suite showed
symptoms of accosting her. Nay, when Mr. Talbot once brought Diccon in
with him, and there was a greeting, which to Cicely's mind was dismally
cold and dry, the lady was so scandalised that Cicely was obliged
formally to tell her that she would answer for it to the Queen. On
Sunday, Mr. Talbot always came to take her to church, and this was a
terrible grievance to Madame, though it was to Cicely the one
refreshment of the week. If it had been only the being out of hearing
of her ho