which
many a man will have to render. For in our society there's no law to
control the King of the Fireside. He is master of property, happiness--life
almost. He is free to punish, to make happy or unhappy--to ruin or to
torture. He may kill a wife gradually, and be no more questioned than the
Grand Seignior who drowns a slave at midnight. He may make slaves and
hypocrites of his children; or friends and freemen; or drive them into
revolt and enmity against the natural law of love. I have heard
politicians and coffee-house wiseacres talking over the newspaper, and
railing at the tyranny of the French king, and the emperor, and wondered
how these (who are monarchs, too, in their way) govern their own dominions
at home, where each man rules absolute? When the annals of each little
reign are shown to the Supreme Master, under whom we hold sovereignty,
histories will be laid bare of household tyrants as cruel as Amurath, and
as savage as Nero, and as reckless and dissolute as Charles.

If Harry Esmond's patron erred, 'twas in the latter way, from a
disposition rather self-indulgent than cruel; and he might have been
brought back to much better feelings, had time been given to him to bring
his repentance to a lasting reform.

As my lord and his friend Lord Mohun were such close companions, Mistress
Beatrix chose to be jealous of the latter; and the two gentlemen often
entertained each other by laughing, in their rude boisterous way, at the
child's freaks of anger and show of dislike. "When thou art old enough,
thou shalt marry Lord Mohun," Beatrix's father would say: on which the
girl would pout and say, "I would rather marry Tom Tusher." And because
the Lord Mohun always showed an extreme gallantry to my Lady Castlewood,
whom he professed to admire devotedly, one day, in answer to this old joke
of her father's, Beatrix said, "I think my lord would rather marry mamma
than marry me; and is waiting till you die to ask her."

The words were said lightly and pertly by the girl one night before
supper, as the family party were assembled near the great fire. The two
lords, who were at cards, both gave a start; my lady turned as red as
scarlet, and bade Mistress Beatrix go to her own chamber; whereupon the
girl, putting on, as her wont was, the most innocent air, said, "I am sure
I meant no wrong; I am sure mamma talks a great deal more to Harry Esmond
than she does to papa--and she cried when Harry went away, and she never
does