to appear at St. James's. No
man could be more pleasant, wicked, lively, obsequious than the worthy
chaplain, Mr. Sampson. How proud he would be if he could show his young
friend a little of London life!--if he could warn rogues off him, and
keep him out of the way of harm! Mr. Sampson was very kind: everybody
was very kind. Harry liked quite well the respect that was paid to him.
As Madam Esmond's son he thought perhaps it was his due: and took for
granted that he was the personage which his family imagined him to be.
How should he know better, who had never as yet seen any place but his
own province, and why should he not respect his own condition when other
people respected it so? So all the little knot of people at Castlewood
House, and from these the people in Castlewood village, and from thence
the people in the whole county, chose to imagine that Mr. Harry Esmond
Warrington was the heir of immense wealth, and a gentleman of very
great importance, because his negro valet told lies about him in the
servants'-hall.

Harry's aunt, Madame de Bernstein, after a week or two, began to tire of
Castlewood and the inhabitants of that mansion, and the neighbours who
came to visit them. This clever woman tired of most things and people
sooner or later. So she took to nodding and sleeping over the chaplain's
stories, and to doze at her whist and over her dinner, and to be very
snappish and sarcastic in her conversation with her Esmond nephews and
nieces, hitting out blows at my lord and his brother the jockey, and my
ladies, widowed and unmarried, who winced under her scornful remarks,
and bore them as they best might. The cook, whom she had so praised on
first coming, now gave her no satisfaction; the wine was corked; the
house was damp, dreary, and full of draughts; the doors would not shut,
and the chimneys were smoky. She began to think the Tunbridge waters
were very necessary for her, and ordered the doctor, who came to her
from the neighbouring town of Hexton, to order those waters for her
benefit.

"I wish to heaven she would go!" growled my lord, who was the most
independent member of his family. "She may go to Tunbridge, or she may
go to Bath, or she may go to Jericho, for me."

"Shall Fanny and I come with you to Tunbridge, dear Baroness?" asked
Lady Castlewood of her sister-in-law.

"Not for worlds, my dear! The doctor orders me absolute quiet, and if
you came I should have the knocker going all day, and Fanny's