ed them to learn, and taught them; and "I don't think papa is
fond of mamma", said Miss Beatrix, with her great eyes. She had come quite
close up to Harry Esmond by the time this prattle took place, and was on
his knee, and had examined all the points of his dress, and all the good
or bad features of his homely face.

"You shouldn't say that papa is not fond of mamma," said the boy, at this
confession. "Mamma never said so; and mamma forbade you to say it, Miss
Beatrix."

'Twas this, no doubt, that accounted for the sadness in Lady Castlewood's
eyes, and the plaintive vibrations of her voice. Who does not know of
eyes, lighted by love once, where the flame shines no more?--of lamps
extinguished, once properly trimmed and tended? Every man has such in his
house. Such mementoes make our splendidest chambers look blank and sad;
such faces seen in a day cast a gloom upon our sunshine. So oaths mutually
sworn, and invocations of Heaven, and priestly ceremonies, and fond
belief, and love, so fond and faithful that it never doubted but that it
should live for ever, are all of no avail towards making love eternal: it
dies, in spite of the banns and the priest; and I have often thought there
should be a visitation of the sick for it, and a funeral service, and an
extreme unction, and an _abi in pace_. It has its course, like all mortal
things--its beginning, progress, and decay. It buds and it blooms out into
sunshine, and it withers and ends. Strephon and Chloe languish apart; join
in a rapture: and presently you hear that Chloe is crying, and Strephon
has broken his crook across her back. Can you mend it so as to show no
marks of rupture? Not all the priests of Hymen, not all the incantations
to the gods, can make it whole!

Waking up from dreams, books, and visions of college honours, in which,
for two years, Harry Esmond had been immersed, he found himself instantly,
on his return home, in the midst of this actual tragedy of life, which
absorbed and interested him more than all his tutor taught him. The
persons whom he loved best in the world, and to whom he owed most, were
living unhappily together. The gentlest and kindest of women was suffering
ill-usage and shedding tears in secret: the man who made her wretched by
neglect, if not by violence, was Harry's benefactor and patron. In houses
where, in place of that sacred, inmost flame of love, there is discord at
the centre, the whole, household becomes hypocritical, and e