en she
married. But though she was now considerably past sixty years of age, I
believe she thought that airy nymph of the picture could still be easily
recognized in the venerable personage who gave an audience to Harry and
his patron.

She received the young man with even more favour than she showed to the
elder, for she chose to carry on the conversation in French, in which my
Lord Castlewood was no great proficient, and expressed her satisfaction at
finding that Mr. Esmond could speak fluently in that language. "'Twas the
only one fit for polite conversation," she condescended to say, "and
suitable to persons of high breeding."

My lord laughed afterwards, as the gentlemen went away, at his kinswoman's
behaviour. He said he remembered the time when she could speak English
fast enough, and joked in his jolly way at the loss he had had of such a
lovely wife as that.

My lady viscountess deigned to ask his lordship news of his wife and
children; she had heard that Lady Castlewood had had the small-pox; she
hoped she was not so _very_ much disfigured as people said.

At this remark about his wife's malady, my lord viscount winced and turned
red; but the dowager, in speaking of the disfigurement of the young lady,
turned to her looking-glass and examined her old wrinkled countenance in
it with such a grin of satisfaction, that it was all her guests could do
to refrain from laughing in her ancient face.

She asked Harry what his profession was to be; and my lord, saying that
the lad was to take orders, and have the living of Castlewood when old Dr.
Tusher vacated it; she did not seem to show any particular anger at the
notion of Harry's becoming a Church of England clergyman, nay, was rather
glad than otherwise, that the youth should be so provided for. She bade
Mr. Esmond not to forget to pay her a visit whenever he passed through
London, and carried her graciousness so far as to send a purse with twenty
guineas for him, to the tavern at which my lord put up (the "Greyhound",
in Charing Cross); and, along with this welcome gift for her kinsman, she
sent a little doll for a present to my lord's little daughter Beatrix, who
was growing beyond the age of dolls by this time, and was as tall almost
as her venerable relative.

After seeing the town, and going to the plays, my Lord Castlewood and
Esmond rode together to Cambridge, spending two pleasant days upon the
journey. Those rapid new coaches were not established as