'Here comes the dinner at last,' said Dundrennan, flinging aside his belt and gauntlets; 'bravo, maitre d'hôtel! are all these fine children yours?'
'Tush, Viscount, don't ask unpleasant questions,' said Cheyne, still in his spirit of banter; 'they are, at least, the children of his wife, Madame la Comtesse de Champagne, our generous lady of the signboard.'
And so, amid gaiety and laughter, heedless of the two reverend abbés who sat in the corner, we sat down to dinner.
It was then the custom in France, when one was invited to dinner, to send a servant with one's knife, fork, and spoon, as these things were never provided for guests. We all produced our apparatus from our pockets, and attacked the viands, as we would have done the enemy.
The two abbés, who had been quite silent since we entered the room, now began to talk while our jaws were otherwise employed; but as they invariably became silent when any of us spoke, and sat in shadow, with their faces turned from us, I conceived, without knowing why, an instinctive mistrust of their character, and watched them narrowly. One was dark in complexion; the other fair, and ten years younger in face and manner; but the knowledge that the costume of an abbé was then the usual attire, or disguise of French gentlemen when travelling, rendered me wary of drawing attention to their presence, or to their conversation, the scraps of which were somewhat to the following effect.
'She is very lovely, with her violet eyes and golden hair,' said the younger abbé; 'Marie Louise herself is not superior to her!'
'Ah, you know her, then—this Madame de Charost?' asked the elder and darker abbé.
'Too well for my own peace; but you smile.'
'She is one of the most faithful wives in Paris.'
'To her husband?'