The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 311: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XXII CHRISTIANS FIRST DAY AT MARCHMONT HOUSE Havina thus seen Christina Ashton installed in the situa- tion which she had accepted, let us follow her brother to the mansion of the Duke and Duchess of Marchmont. On arriv- ing there, he was requested by a footman to follow him to the housekeeper’s room, and in a few minutes he was intro- duced to that important female functionary. We may here as well observe that the steward and house- keeper were husband and wife, and that their name was Calvert. They were an elderly couple, — Mr. Calvert of spare figure, sedate countenance, and remarkable precision both of speech and manners; his wife a stout, matronly, comfortable-looking dame, always exceedingly neat in her apparel, and priding herself highly on the regularity and good discipline which her husband and herself maintained in the domestic department of the household. They were excessively strict, but at the same time straightforward and right-principled. They exercised no overbearing des- potism themselves, and allowed no petty tyrannies to be practised by the superior servants toward the inferior ones. They had their own parlour, where they usually took their meals together; but of a Sunday they generally invited the butler, the lady’s-maids, and one or two of the upper serv- ants — such as his Grace’s valets — to feast at their dining- table. It was to this comfortable little parlour that Christian Ash- ton was conducted by the gorgeously dressed footman, and there he found Mr. and Mrs. Calvert seated together. Both were looking over accounts, and in front of each was a goodly pile of money in bank-notes, gold, and silver. When the footman announced Mr. Ashton, they both desisted from 280 Gomicbooks (E(0)