tes a
greater. I tell you, brother, we must punish him."

The grandsire's old Bordeaux had set George's ordinarily pale
countenance into a flame. Harry, his brother's fondest worshipper,
could not but admire George's haughty bearing and rapid declamation, and
prepared himself, with his usual docility, to follow his chief. So the
boys went to their beds, the elder conveying special injunctions to his
junior to be civil to all the guests so long as they remained under the
maternal roof on the morrow.

Good manners and a repugnance to telling tales out of school, forbid us
from saying which of Madam Esmond's guests was the first to fall under
the weight of her hospitality. The respectable descendants of Messrs.
Talmadge and Danvers, aides-de-camp to his Excellency, might not care to
hear how their ancestors were intoxicated a hundred years ago; and yet
the gentlemen themselves took no shame in the fact, and there is little
doubt they or their comrades were tipsy twice or thrice in the week.
Let us fancy them reeling to bed, supported by sympathising negroes; and
their vinous General, too stout a toper to have surrendered himself to
a half-dozen bottles of Bordeaux, conducted to his chamber by the young
gentlemen of the house, and speedily sleeping the sleep which friendly
Bacchus gives. The good lady of Castlewood saw the condition of her
guests without the least surprise or horror; and was up early in the
morning, providing cooling drinks for their hot palates, which the
servants carried to their respective chambers. At breakfast, one of
the English officers rallied Mr. Franklin, who took no wine at all, and
therefore refused the morning cool draught of toddy, by showing how the
Philadelphia gentleman lost two pleasures, the drink and the toddy. The
young fellow said the disease was pleasant and the remedy delicious, and
laughingly proposed to continue repeating them both. The General's new
American aide-de-camp, Colonel Washington, was quite sober and serene.
The British officers vowed they must take him in hand, and teach him
what the ways of the English army were; but the Virginian gentleman
gravely said he did not care to learn that part of the English military
education.

The widow, occupied as she had been with the cares of a great dinner,
followed by a great breakfast on the morning ensuing, had scarce leisure
to remark the behaviour of her sons very closely, but at least saw that
George was scrupulously polite