ung woman,
I'm positive that a thousand duels were fought about me. And when poor
Monsieur de Souchy drowned himself in the canal at Bruges because I danced
with Count Springbock, I couldn't squeeze out a single tear, but danced
till five o'clock the next morning. 'Twas the count--no, 'twas my Lord
Ormonde that paid the fiddles, and his Majesty did me the honour of
dancing all night with me.--How you are grown! You have got the _bel air_.
You are a black man. Our Esmonds are all black. The little prude's son is
fair; so was his father--fair and stupid. You were an ugly little wretch
when you came to Castlewood--you were all eyes, like a young crow. We
intended you should be a priest. That awful Father Holt--how he used to
frighten me when I was ill! I have a comfortable director now--the Abbe
Douillette--a dear man. We make meagre on Fridays always. My cook is a
devout pious man. You, of course, are of the right way of thinking. They
say the Prince of Orange is very ill indeed."

In this way the old dowager rattled on remorselessly to Mr. Esmond, who
was quite astounded with her present volubility, contrasting it with her
former haughty behaviour to him. But she had taken him into favour for the
moment, and chose not only to like him, as far as her nature permitted,
but to be afraid of him; and he found himself to be as familiar with her
now as a young man, as when a boy, he had been timorous and silent. She
was as good as her word respecting him. She introduced him to her company,
of which she entertained a good deal--of the adherents of King James of
course--and a great deal of loud intriguing took place over her
card-tables. She presented Mr. Esmond as her kinsman to many persons of
honour; she supplied him not illiberally with money, which he had no
scruple in accepting from her, considering the relationship which he bore
to her, and the sacrifices which he himself was making in behalf of the
family. But he had made up his mind to continue at no woman's
apron-strings longer; and perhaps had cast about how he should distinguish
himself, and make himself a name, which his singular fortune had denied
him. A discontent with his former bookish life and quietude,--a bitter
feeling of revolt at that slavery in which he had chosen to confine
himself for the sake of those whose hardness towards him made his heart
bleed,--a restless wish to see men and the world,--led him to think of the
military profession: at any rate, to de