champagne: the young folks and their mother kept up the conversation, not
so much by talking, as by listening appropriately to their friend. She
was full of spirits and humour. She seemed to know everybody in Europe,
and about those everybodies the wickedest stories. The Countess of
Castlewood, ordinarily a very demure, severe woman, and a stickler for
the proprieties, smiled at the very worst of these anecdotes; the girls
looked at one another and laughed at the maternal signal; the boys
giggled and roared with especial delight at their sisters' confusion.
They also partook freely of the wine which the butler handed round, nor
did they, or their guest, disdain the bowl of smoking punch, which was
laid on the table after the supper. Many and many a night, the Baroness
said, she had drunk at that table by her father's side. "That was his
place," she pointed to the place where the Countess now sat. She saw none
of the old plate. That was all melted to pay his gambling debts. She
hoped, "Young gentlemen, that you don't play."

"Never, on my word," says Castlewood.

"Never, 'pon honour," says Will--winking at his brother.

The Baroness was very glad to hear they were such good boys. Her face
grew redder with the punch; and she became voluble, might have been
thought coarse, but that times were different, and those critics were
inclined to be especially favourable.

She talked to the boys about their father, their grandfather--other men
and women of the house. "The only man of the family was that," she said,
pointing (with an arm that was yet beautifully round and white) towards
the picture of the military gentleman in the red coat and cuirass, and
great black periwig.