d from horseback.

"What, Harry, boy!" my lord said good-naturedly, "you look as gaunt as a
greyhound. The small-pox hasn't improved your beauty, and your side of the
house hadn't never too much of it--ho, ho!"

And he laughed, and sprang to the ground with no small agility, looking
handsome and red, with a jolly face and brown hair, like a beef-eater;
Esmond kneeling again, as soon as his patron had descended, performed his
homage, and then went to greet the little Beatrix, and help her from her
horse.

"Fie! how yellow you look," she said; "and there are one, two, red holes
in your face;" which, indeed, was very true; Harry Esmond's harsh
countenance bearing, as long as it continued to be a human face, the marks
of the disease.

My lord laughed again, in high good humour.

"D---- it!" said he, with one of his usual oaths, "the little slut sees
everything. She saw the dowager's paint t'other day, and asked her why she
wore that red stuff--didn't you, Trix? and the Tower; and St. James's; and
the play; and the Prince George, and the Princess Anne--didn't you, Trix?"

"They are both very fat, and smelt of brandy," the child said.

Papa roared with laughing.

"Brandy!" he said. "And how do you know, Miss Pert?"

"Because your lordship smells of it after supper, when I embrace you
before you go to bed," said the young lady, who, indeed, was as pert as
her father said, and looked as beautiful a little gipsy as eyes ever gazed
on.

"And now for my lady," said my lord, going up the stairs, and passing
under the tapestry curtain that hung before the drawing-room door. Esmond
remembered that noble figure handsomely arrayed in scarlet. Within the
last few months he himself had grown from a boy to be a man, and with his
figure, his thoughts had shot up, and grown manly.

My lady's countenance, of which Harry Esmond was accustomed to watch the
changes, and with a solicitous affection to note and interpret the signs
of gladness or care, wore a sad and depressed look for many weeks after
her lord's return: during which it seemed as if, by caresses and
entreaties, she strove to win him back from some ill humour he had, and
which he did not choose to throw off. In her eagerness to please him she
practised a hundred of those arts which had formerly charmed him, but
which seemed now to have lost their potency. Her songs did not amuse him;
and she hushed them and the children when in his presence. My lord sat
silent at his d