y; but Frank is Viscount
of Castlewood still. And rather than disturb him, I would turn monk, or
disappear in America."

As he spoke so to his dearest mistress, for whom he would have been
willing to give up his life, or to make any sacrifice any day, the fond
creature flung herself down on her knees before him, and kissed both his
hands in an outbreak of passionate love and gratitude, such as could not
but melt his heart, and make him feel very proud and thankful that God
had given him the power to show his love for her, and to prove it by
some little sacrifice on his own part. To be able to bestow benefits
or happiness on those one loves is sure the greatest blessing conferred
upon a man--and what wealth or name, or gratification of ambition or
vanity, could compare with the pleasure Esmond now had of being able to
confer some kindness upon his best and dearest friends?

"Dearest saint," says he--"purest soul, that has had so much to suffer,
that has blest the poor lonely orphan with such a treasure of love. 'Tis
for me to kneel, not for you: 'tis for me to be thankful that I can make
you happy. Hath my life any other aim? Blessed be God that I can serve
you! What pleasure, think you, could all the world give me compared to
that?"

"Don't raise me," she said, in a wild way, to Esmond, who would have
lifted her. "Let me kneel--let me kneel, and--and--worship you."

Before such a partial judge as Esmond's dear mistress owned herself to
be, any cause which he might plead was sure to be given in his favor;
and accordingly he found little difficulty in reconciling her to the
news whereof he was bearer, of her son's marriage to a foreign lady,
Papist though she was. Lady Castlewood never could be brought to think
so ill of that religion as other people in England thought of it: she
held that ours was undoubtedly a branch of the Catholic church, but that
the Roman was one of the main stems on which, no doubt, many errors had
been grafted (she was, for a woman, extraordinarily well versed in this
controversy, having acted, as a girl, as secretary to her father, the
late dean, and written many of his sermons, under his dictation); and if
Frank had chosen to marry a lady of the church of south Europe, as she
would call the Roman communion, there was no need why she should not
welcome her as a daughter-in-law: and accordingly she wrote to her new
daughter a very pretty, touching letter (as Esmond thought, who had
cognizance