, and taking Esmond's hand, with an air
of great compassion, "you can't think that in our position anything more
than our present friendship is possible. You are our elder brother--as
such we view you, pitying your misfortune, not rebuking you with it.
Why, you are old enough and grave enough to be our father. I always
thought you a hundred years old, Harry, with your solemn face and grave
air. I feel as a sister to you, and can no more. Isn't that enough,
sir?" And she put her face quite close to his--who knows with what
intention?

"It's too much," says Esmond, turning away. "I can't bear this life,
and shall leave it. I shall stay, I think, to see you married, and then
freight a ship, and call it the 'Beatrix,' and bid you all . . ."

Here the servant, flinging the door open, announced his Grace the Duke
of Hamilton, and Esmond started back with something like an imprecation
on his lips, as the nobleman entered, looking splendid in his star and
green ribbon. He gave Mr. Esmond just that gracious bow which he would
have given to a lackey who fetched him a chair or took his hat, and
seated himself by Miss Beatrix, as the poor Colonel went out of the room
with a hang-dog look.

Esmond's mistress was in the lower room as he passed down stairs. She
often met him as he was coming away from Beatrix; and she beckoned him
into the apartment.

"Has she told you, Harry?" Lady Castlewood said.

"She has been very frank--very," says Esmond.

"But--but about what is going to happen?"

"What is going to happen?" says he, his heart beating.

"His Grace the Duke of Hamilton has proposed to her," says my lady. "He
made his offer yesterday. They will marry as soon as his mourning is
over; and you have heard his Grace is appointed Ambassador to Paris; and
the Ambassadress goes with him."

CHAPTER IV.

BEATRIX'S NEW SUITOR.

The gentleman whom Beatrix had selected was, to be sure, twenty years
older than the Colonel, with whom she quarrelled for being too old; but
this one was but a nameless adventurer, and the other the greatest duke
in Scotland, with pretensions even to a still higher title. My Lord Duke
of Hamilton had, indeed, every merit belonging to a gentleman, and he
had had the time to mature his accomplishments fully, being upwards of
fifty years old when Madam Beatrix selected him for a bridegroom. Duke
Hamilton, then Earl of Arran, had been educated at the famous Scottish
university of Glasgow, and, comi