ead for a moment. "You shall stay in no such dull place.
You shall go to college and distinguish yourself as becomes your name.
That is how you shall please me best; and--and if my children want you,
or I want you, you shall come to us; and I know we may count on you."

"May Heaven forsake me if you may not!" Harry said, getting up
from his knee.

"And my knight longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight," said
my lady, laughing; which speech made Harry Esmond start, and turn red;
for indeed the very thought was in his mind, that he would like that some
chance should immediately happen whereby he might show his devotion. And
it pleased him to think that his lady had called him "her knight," and
often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed that he might be
her true knight, too.

My lady's bed-chamber window looked out over the country, and you could
see from it the purple hills beyond Castlewood village, the green common
betwixt that and the Hall, and the old bridge which crossed over the
river. When Harry Esmond went away to Cambridge, little Frank ran
alongside his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a
moment, and looked back at the house where the best part of his life had
been passed.

It lay before him with its grey familiar towers, a pinnacle or two
shining in the sun, the buttresses and terrace walls casting great blue
shades on the grass. And Harry remembered all his life after how he saw
his mistress at the window looking out on him in a white robe, the little
Beatrix's chestnut curls resting at her mother's side. Both waved a
farewell to him, and little Frank sobbed to leave him. Yes, he _would_
be his lady's true knight, he vowed in his heart; he waved her an adieu
with his hat. The village people had good-bye to say to him, too. All
knew that Master Harry was going to college, and most of them had a kind
word and a look of farewell. I do not stop to say what adventures he
began to imagine, or what career to devise for himself before he had
ridden three miles from home. He had not read the Arabian tales as yet;
but be sure that there are other folks who build castles in the air, and
have fine hopes, and kick them down, too, besides honest Alnaschar.

This change in his life was a very fine thing indeed for Harry, who rode
away in company of my lord, who said he should like to revisit the old
haunts of his youth, and so accompanied Harry to Cambridge. Their road
lay t