want 'em; the Queen can make a duke any day.
Look at Blandford's father, Duke Churchill, and Duchess Jennings, what
were they, Harry? Damn it, sir, what are they, to turn up their noses at
us? Where were they when our ancestor rode with King Henry at Agincourt,
and filled up the French King's cup after Poictiers? 'Fore George, sir,
why shouldn't Blandford marry Beatrix? By G--! he SHALL marry Beatrix,
or tell me the reason why. We'll marry with the best blood of England,
and none but the best blood of England. You are an Esmond, and you can't
help your birth, my boy. Let's have another bottle. What! no more? I've
drunk three parts of this myself. I had many a night with my father; you
stood to him like a man, Harry. You backed your blood; you can't help
your misfortune, you know,--no man can help that."

The elder said he would go in to his mistress's tea-table. The young
lad, with a heightened color and voice, began singing a snatch of a
song, and marched out of the room. Esmond heard him presently calling
his dogs about him, and cheering and talking to them; and by a hundred
of his looks and gestures, tricks of voice and gait, was reminded of the
dead lord, Frank's father.

And so, the sylvester night passed away; the family parted long before
midnight, Lady Castlewood remembering, no doubt, former New Years' Eves,
when healths were drunk, and laughter went round in the company of him,
to whom years, past, and present, and future, were to be as one; and so
cared not to sit with her children and hear the Cathedral bells ringing
the birth of the year 1703. Esmond heard the chimes as he sat in his own
chamber, ruminating by the blazing fire there, and listened to the last
notes of them, looking out from his window towards the city, and the
great gray towers of the Cathedral lying under the frosty sky, with the
keen stars shining above.

The sight of these brilliant orbs no doubt made him think of other
luminaries. "And so her eyes have already done execution," thought
Esmond--"on whom?--who can tell me?" Luckily his kinsman was by,
and Esmond knew he would have no difficulty in finding out Mistress
Beatrix's history from the simple talk of the boy.

CHAPTER VIII.

FAMILY TALK.

What Harry admired and submitted to in the pretty lad his kinsman was
(for why should he resist it?) the calmness of patronage which my young
lord assumed, as if to command was his undoubted right, and all the
world (below his degre