watched, and tended, and nursed you, like a mother;
who have sate up whole weeks with you in fevers, and carried you from
your bed to the sofa in these arms. There, sir, I don't want you there
now. My dear Mountain, indeed! Don't tell me! You fly into a passion,
and, call names, and wound my feelings, who have loved you like your
mother--like your mother?--I only hope she may love you half as well. I
say you are all ungrateful. My Mr. Mountain was a wretch, and every one
of you is as bad."

There was but a smouldering log or two in the fireplace, and no doubt
Mountain saw that the paper was in no danger as it lay amongst the
ashes, or she would have seized it at the risk of burning her own
fingers, and ere she uttered the above passionate defence of her
conduct. Perhaps George was absorbed in his dismal thoughts; perhaps
his jealousy overpowered him, for he did not resist any further when she
stooped down and picked up the paper.

"You should thank your stars, child, that I saved the letter," cried
she. "See! here are his own words, in his great big handwriting like
a clerk. It was not my fault that he wrote them, or that I found them.
Read for yourself, I say, George Warrington, and be thankful that your
poor dear old Mounty is watching over you!"

Every word and letter upon the unlucky paper was perfectly clear.
George's eyes could not help taking in the contents of the document
before him. "Not a word of this, Mountain," he said, giving her a
frightful look. "I--I will return this paper to Mr. Washington."

Mountain was scared at his face, at the idea of what she had done, and
what might ensue. When his mother, with alarm in her countenance, asked
him at dinner what ailed him that he looked so pale? "Do you suppose,
madam," says he, filling himself a great bumper of wine, "that to leave
such a tender mother as you does not cause me cruel grief?"

The good lady could not understand his words, his strange, fierce looks,
and stranger laughter. He bantered all at the table; called to the
servants and laughed at them, and drank more and more. Each time the
door was opened, he turned towards it; and so did Mountain, with a
guilty notion that Mr. Washington would step in.

CHAPTER VIII. In which George suffers from a Common Disease

On the day appointed for Madam Esmond's entertainment to the General,
the house of Castlewood was set out with the greatest splendour; and
Madam Esmond arrayed herself in a much