I
think if Nero were to rise again, and be king of England, and a good
family man, the ladies would pardon him. My lord laughed at his wife's
objections--the standard of virtue did not fit him much.

The last conference which Mr. Holt had with his lordship took place when
Harry was come home for his first vacation from college (Harry saw his old
tutor but for a half-hour, and exchanged no private words with him), and
their talk, whatever it might be, left my lord viscount very much
disturbed in mind--so much so, that his wife, and his young kinsman, Henry
Esmond, could not but observe his disquiet. After Holt was gone, my lord
rebuffed Esmond, and again treated him with the greatest deference; he
shunned his wife's questions and company, and looked at his children with
such a face of gloom and anxiety, muttering, "Poor children--poor
children!" in a way that could not but fill those whose life it was to
watch him and obey him, with great alarm. For which gloom, each person
interested in the Lord Castlewood, framed in his or her own mind an
interpretation.

My lady, with a laugh of cruel bitterness, said, "I suppose the person at
Hexton has been ill, or has scolded him" (for my lord's infatuation about
Mrs. Marwood was known only too well). Young Esmond feared for his money
affairs, into the condition of which he had been initiated; and that the
expenses, always greater than his revenue, had caused Lord Castlewood
disquiet.

One of the causes why my lord viscount had taken young Esmond into his
special favour was a trivial one, that hath not before been mentioned,
though it was a very lucky accident in Henry Esmond's life. A very few
months after my lord's coming to Castlewood, in the winter-time--the little
boy, being a child in a petticoat, trotting about--it happened that little
Frank was with his father after dinner, who fell asleep over his wine,
heedless of the child, who crawled to the fire; and, as good fortune would
have it, Esmond was sent by his mistress for the boy just as the poor
little screaming urchin's coat was set on fire by a log; when Esmond,
rushing forward, tore the dress off the infant, so that his own hands were
burned more than the child's, who was frightened rather than hurt, by this
accident. But certainly 'twas providential that a resolute person should
have come in at that instant, or the child had been burned to death
probably, my lord sleeping very heavily after drinking, and not waking s