o resist the torture of women.

It was but three years before that the child, then but ten years old,
had nearly managed to make a quarrel between Harry Esmond and his
comrade, good-natured, phlegmatic Thomas Tusher, who never of his own
seeking quarrelled with anybody: by quoting to the latter some silly
joke which Harry had made regarding him--(it was the merest idlest jest,
though it near drove two old friends to blows, and I think such a battle
would have pleased her)--and from that day Tom kept at a distance from
her; and she respected him, and coaxed him sedulously whenever they met.
But Harry was much more easily appeased, because he was fonder of the
child: and when she made mischief, used cutting speeches, or caused her
friends pain, she excused herself for her fault, not by admitting and
deploring it, but by pleading not guilty, and asserting innocence so
constantly, and with such seeming artlessness, that it was impossible to
question her plea. In her childhood, they were but mischiefs then which
she did; but her power became more fatal as she grew older--as a kitten
first plays with a ball, and then pounces on a bird and kills it. 'Tis
not to be imagined that Harry Esmond had all this experience at this
early stage of his life, whereof he is now writing the history--many
things here noted were but known to him in later days. Almost everything
Beatrix did or undid seemed good, or at least pardonable, to him then,
and years afterwards.

It happened, then, that Harry Esmond came home to Castlewood for his
last vacation, with good hopes of a fellowship at his college, and a
contented resolve to advance his fortune that way. 'Twas in the first
year of the present century, Mr. Esmond (as far as he knew the period of
his birth) being then twenty-two years old. He found his quondam pupil
shot up into this beauty of which we have spoken, and promising yet
more: her brother, my lord's son, a handsome high-spirited brave lad,
generous and frank, and kind to everybody, save perhaps his sister,
with whom Frank was at war (and not from his but her fault)--adoring his
mother, whose joy he was: and taking her side in the unhappy matrimonial
differences which were now permanent, while of course Mistress Beatrix
ranged with her father. When heads of families fall out, it must
naturally be that their dependants wear the one or the other party's
color; and even in the parliaments in the servants' hall or the stables,
Harry, wh