ack to it."

"She is quite as well at home at Castlewood," Esmond's mistress said,
"till everything is over."

"You shall have your title, Esmond, that I promise you," says the
good Bishop, assuming the airs of a Prime Minister. "The Prince hath
expressed himself most nobly in regard of the little difference of last
night, and I promise you he hath listened to my sermon, as well as to
that of other folks," says the Doctor, archly; "he hath every great and
generous quality, with perhaps a weakness for the sex which belongs to
his family, and hath been known in scores of popular sovereigns from
King David downwards."

"My lord, my lord!" breaks out Lady Esmond, "the levity with which
you speak of such conduct towards our sex shocks me, and what you call
weakness I call deplorable sin."

"Sin it is, my dear creature," says the Bishop, with a shrug, taking
snuff; "but consider what a sinner King Solomon was, and in spite of a
thousand of wives too."

"Enough of this, my lord," says Lady Castlewood, with a fine blush, and
walked out of the room very stately.

The Prince entered it presently with a smile on his face, and if he felt
any offence against us on the previous night, at present exhibited none.
He offered a hand to each gentleman with great courtesy. "If all your
bishops preach so well as Doctor Atterbury." says he, "I don't know,
gentlemen, what may happen to me. I spoke very hastily, my lords, last
night, and ask pardon of both of you. But I must not stay any longer,"
says he, "giving umbrage to good friends, or keeping pretty girls away
from their homes. My Lord Bishop hath found a safe place for me, hard
by at a curate's house, whom the Bishop can trust, and whose wife is so
ugly as to be beyond all danger; we will decamp into those new quarters,
and I leave you, thanking you for a hundred kindnesses here. Where is
my hostess, that I may bid her farewell; to welcome her in a house of my
own, soon, I trust, where my friends shall have no cause to quarrel with
me."

Lady Castlewood arrived presently, blushing with great grace, and tears
filling her eyes as the Prince graciously saluted her. She looked so
charming and young, that the doctor, in his bantering way, could not
help speaking of her beauty to the Prince; whose compliment made her
blush, and look more charming still.

CHAPTER XII.

A GREAT SCHEME, AND WHO BALKED IT.

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