out both towards Surrey and Kensington, where stands the noble
ancient palace of the Lord Warwick, Harry's reconciled adversary.

Here in her ladyship's saloon, the young man saw again some of those
pictures which had been at Castlewood, and which she had removed thence
on the death of her lord, Harry's father. Specially, and in the place of
honor, was Sir Peter Lely's picture of the honorable Mistress Isabella
Esmond as Diana, in yellow satin, with a bow in her hand and a crescent
in her forehead; and dogs frisking about her. 'Twas painted about the
time when royal Endymions were said to find favor with this virgin
huntress; and, as goddesses have youth perpetual, this one believed to
the day of her death that she never grew older: and always persisted in
supposing the picture was still like her.

After he had been shown to her room by the groom of the chamber, who
filled many offices besides in her ladyship's modest household, and
after a proper interval, his elderly goddess Diana vouchsafed to appear
to the young man. A blackamoor in a Turkish habit, with red boots and a
silver collar, on which the Viscountess's arms were engraven, preceded
her and bore her cushion; then came her gentlewoman; a little pack of
spaniels barking and frisking about preceded the austere huntress--then,
behold, the Viscountess herself "dropping odors." Esmond recollected
from his childhood that rich aroma of musk which his mother-in-law
(for she may be called so) exhaled. As the sky grows redder and redder
towards sunset, so, in the decline of her years, the cheeks of my Lady
Dowager blushed more deeply. Her face was illuminated with vermilion,
which appeared the brighter from the white paint employed to set it off.
She wore the ringlets which had been in fashion in King Charles's time;
whereas the ladies of King William's had head-dresses like the towers of
Cybele. Her eyes gleamed out from the midst of this queer structure of
paint, dyes, and pomatums. Such was my Lady Viscountess, Mr. Esmond's
father's widow.

He made her such a profound bow as her dignity and relationship merited,
and advanced with the greatest gravity, and once more kissed that
hand, upon the trembling knuckles of which glittered a score of
rings--remembering old times when that trembling hand made him tremble.
"Marchioness," says he, bowing, and on one knee, "is it only the hand I
may have the honor of saluting?" For, accompanying that inward laughter,
which the si