great his appetite was, Mr.
Wycherley said, he ended by swallowing that fly-blown rank old morsel
his cousin. There were endless jokes and lampoons about this marriage at
Court: but Tom rode thither in his uncle's coach now, called him father,
and having won could afford to laugh. This marriage took place very
shortly before King Charles died: whom the Viscount of Castlewood
speedily followed.

The issue of this marriage was one son, whom the parents watched with an
intense eagerness and care; but who, in spite of nurses and physicians,
had only a brief existence. His tainted blood did not run very long in
his poor feeble little body. Symptoms of evil broke out early on him;
and, part from flattery, part superstition, nothing would satisfy my
lord and lady, especially the latter, but having the poor little cripple
touched by his Majesty at his church. They were ready to cry out miracle
at first (the doctors and quack-salvers being constantly in attendance
on the child, and experimenting on his poor little body with every
conceivable nostrum) but though there seemed, from some reason, a
notable amelioration in the infant's health after his Majesty touched
him, in a few weeks afterward the poor thing died--causing the
lampooners of the Court to say, that the King, in expelling evil out of
the infant of Tom Esmond and Isabella his wife, expelled the life out of
it, which was nothing but corruption.

The mother's natural pang at losing this poor little child must have
been increased when she thought of her rival Frank Esmond's wife, who
was a favorite of the whole Court, where my poor Lady Castlewood was
neglected, and who had one child, a daughter, flourishing and beautiful,
and was about to become a mother once more.

The Court, as I have heard, only laughed the more because the poor lady,
who had pretty well passed the age when ladies are accustomed to have
children, nevertheless determined not to give hope up, and even when she
came to live at Castlewood, was constantly sending over to Hexton for
the doctor, and announcing to her friends the arrival of an heir. This
absurdity of hers was one amongst many others which the wags used to
play upon. Indeed, to the last days of her life, my Lady Viscountess had
the comfort of fancying herself beautiful, and persisted in blooming
up to the very midst of winter, painting roses on her cheeks long after
their natural season, and attiring herself like summer though her head
wa