'For my part,' said the footman, 'I should like to have seen our real
master, Squire Herbert. He was a famous gentleman by all accounts.'
'I wish they had lived quietly at home,' said the housekeeper.
'I shall never forget the time when my lord returned,' said the
grey-headed butler. 'I must say I thought it was a match.'
'Mistress Pauncefort seemed to think so,' said the housemaid.
'And she understands those things,' said the footman.
'I see the carriage,' said a servant who was at a window in the hall.
All immediately bustled about, and the housekeeper sent a message to
the steward.
The carriage might be just discovered at the end of the avenue. It was
some time before it entered the iron gates that were thrown open for
its reception. The steward stood on the steps with his hat off, the
servants were ranged in order at the entrance. Touching their horses
with the spur, and cracking their whips, the postilions dashed
round the circular plot and stopped at the hall-door. Under any
circumstances a return home after an interval of years is rather an
awful moment; there was not a servant who was not visibly affected.
On the outside of the carriage was a foreign servant and Mistress
Pauncefort, who was not so profuse as might have been expected in her
recognitions of her old friends; her countenance was graver than of
yore.
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