chosen few subjects more likely to interest the
unhappy young man, whose heart was now as always devoted to these ladies;
and who was thankful to all who loved them, or praised them, or wished
them well.

Not that his fidelity was recompensed by any answering kindness, or show
of relenting even, on the part of a mistress obdurate now after ten years
of love and benefactions. The poor young man getting no answer, save
Tusher's, to that letter which he had written, and being too proud to
write more, opened a part of his heart to Steele, than whom no man, when
unhappy, could find a kinder hearer or more friendly emissary; described
(in words which were no doubt pathetic, for they came _imo pectore_, and
caused honest Dick to weep plentifully) his youth, his constancy, his fond
devotion to that household which had reared him; his affection how earned,
and how tenderly requited until but yesterday, and (as far as he might)
the circumstances and causes for which that sad quarrel had made of Esmond
a prisoner under sentence, a widow and orphans of those whom in life he
held dearest. In terms that might well move a harder-hearted man than
young Esmond's confidant--for, indeed, the speaker's own heart was half
broke as he uttered them; he described a part of what had taken place in
that only sad interview which his mistress had granted him; how she had
left him with anger and almost imprecation, whose words and thoughts until
then had been only blessing and kindness; how she had accused him of the
guilt of that blood, in exchange for which he would cheerfully have
sacrificed his own (indeed, in this the Lord Mohun, the Lord Warwick, and
all the gentlemen engaged, as well as the common rumour out of
doors--Steele told him--bore out the luckless young man); and with all his
heart, and tears, he besought Mr. Steele to inform his mistress of her
kinsman's unhappiness, and to deprecate that cruel anger she showed him.
Half frantic with grief at the injustice done him, and contrasting it with
a thousand soft recollections of love and confidence gone by, that made
his present misery inexpressibly more bitter, the poor wretch passed many
a lonely day and wakeful night in a kind of powerless despair and rage
against his iniquitous fortune. It was the softest hand that struck him,
the gentlest and most compassionate nature that persecuted him. "I would
as lief," he said, "have pleaded guilty to the murder, and have suffered
for it like an