“Only baptized. We should have had it christened before now, but for William’s death. Not that we give christening dinners; but I waited for the trial at Lynneborough to be over, that my dear brother Richard might stand to the child.”
“Mr. Carlyle does not like christenings made into festivals,” Lady Isabel dreamily observed, her thoughts buried in the past.
“How do you know that?” exclaimed Barbara, opening her eyes.
And poor Madame Vine, her pale face flushing, had to stammer forth some confused words that she had “heard so somewhere.”
“It is quite true,” said Barbara. “He has never given a christening-dinner for any of his children, and gets out of attending if invited to one. He cannot understand the analogy between a solemn religious rite and the meeting together afterward to eat and drink and make merry, according to the fashion of this world.”
As Lady Isabel quitted the room, young Vane was careering through the corridor, throwing his head in all directions, and calling out,—
“Lucy! I want Lucy!”
“What do you want with her?” asked Madame Vine.
“Il m’est impossible de vous le dire madame,” responded he. Being, for an Eton boy, wonderfully up in French, he was rather given to show it off when he got the chance. He did not owe thanks for it to Eton. Lady Mount Severn had taken better care than that. Better care? What could she want? There was one whole, real, live French tutor—and he an Englishman!—for the eight hundred boys. Very unreasonable of her ladyship to disparage that ample provision.
“Lucy cannot come to you just now. She is practicing.”