en, gave them shelter and friendship. The ladies were quite
good friends as long as the weaker one needed a protector. Before Esmond
went away on his first campaign, his mistress was still on terms of
friendship (though a poor little chit, a woman that had evidently no
spirit in her, &c.) with the elder Lady Castlewood; and Mistress Beatrix
was allowed to be a beauty.

But between the first year of Queen Anne's reign, and the second, sad
changes for the worse had taken place in the two younger ladies, at least
in the elder's description of them. Rachel, Viscountess Castlewood, had no
more face than a dumpling, and Mrs. Beatrix was grown quite coarse, and
was losing all her beauty. Little Lord Blandford (she never would call him
Lord Blandford; his father was Lord Churchill--the king, whom he betrayed,
had made him Lord Churchill, and he was Lord Churchill still)--might be
making eyes at her; but his mother, that vixen of a Sarah Jennings, would
never hear of such a folly. Lady Marlborough had got her to be a maid of
honour at Court to the princess, but she would repent of it. The widow
Francis (she was but Mrs. Francis Esmond) was a scheming, artful,
heartless hussy. She was spoiling her brat of a boy, and she would end by
marrying her chaplain.

"What, Tusher?" cried Mr. Esmond, feeling a strange pang of rage and
astonishment.

"Yes--Tusher, my maid's son; and who has got all the qualities of his
father, the lackey in black, and his accomplished mamma, the
waiting-woman," cries my lady. "What, do you suppose that a sentimental
widow, who will live down in that dingy dungeon of a Castlewood, where she
spoils her boy, kills the poor with her drugs, has prayers twice a day and
sees nobody but the chaplain--what do you suppose she can do, _mon cousin_,
but let the horrid parson, with his great square toes, and hideous little
green eyes, make love to her? _Cela c'est vu, mon cousin._ When I was a
girl at Castlewood, all the chaplains fell in love with me--they've nothing
else to do."

My lady went on with more talk of this kind, though, in truth, Esmond had
no idea of what she said further, so entirely did her first words occupy
his thought. Were they true? Not all, nor half, nor a tenth part of what
the garrulous old woman said, was true. Could this be so? No ear had
Esmond for anything else, though his patroness chattered on for an hour.

Some young gentlemen of the town, with whom Esmond had made acquaintance,
had p