o
cool as a man should who had a danger to face.

Ever after this the father, loud in his expressions of remorse and
humility for being a tipsy good-for-nothing, and of admiration for Harry
Esmond, whom his lordship would style a hero for doing a very trifling
service, had the tenderest regard for his son's preserver, and Harry
became quite as one of the family. His burns were tended with the greatest
care by his kind mistress, who said that Heaven had sent him to be the
guardian of her children, and that she would love him all her life.

And it was after this, and from the very great love and tenderness which
had grown up in this little household, rather than to the exhortations of
Dean Armstrong (though these had no small weight with him), that Harry
came to be quite of the religion of his house and his dear mistress, of
which he has ever since been a professing member. As for Dr. Tusher's
boasts that he was the cause of this conversion--even in these young days
Mr. Esmond had such a contempt for the doctor, that had Tusher bade him
believe anything (which he did not--never meddling at all), Harry would
that instant have questioned the truth on't.

My lady seldom drank wine; but on certain days of the year, such as
birthdays (poor Harry had never a one) and anniversaries, she took a
little; and this day, the 29th December, was one. At the end, then, of
this year, '96, it might have been a fortnight after Mr. Holt's last
visit, Lord Castlewood being still very gloomy in mind, and sitting at
table--my lady bidding a servant bring her a glass of wine, and looking at
her husband with one of her sweet smiles, said--

"My lord, will you not fill a bumper too, and let me call a toast?"

"What is it, Rachel?" says he, holding out his empty glass to be filled.

"'Tis the 29th of December," says my lady, with her fond look of
gratitude; "and my toast is, 'Harry--and God bless him, who saved my boy's
life!' "

My lord looked at Harry hard, and drank the glass, but clapped it down on
the table in a moment, and, with a sort of groan, rose up, and went out of
the room. What was the matter? We all knew that some great grief was over
him.

Whether my lord's prudence had made him richer, or legacies had fallen to
him, which enabled him to support a greater establishment than that frugal
one which had been too much for his small means, Harry Esmond knew not;
but the house of Castlewood was now on a scale much more costly than i