e took a hand
of her son who was in the hall waiting his mother--she did not quit
Esmond's arm.

"Welcome, Harry!" my young lord echoed after her. "Here, we are all come
to say so. Here's old Pincot, hasn't she grown handsome?" and Pincot, who
was older, and no handsomer than usual, made a curtsy to the captain, as
she called Esmond, and told my lord to "Have done, now."

"And here's Jack Lockwood. He'll make a famous grenadier, Jack; and so
shall I; we'll both 'list under you, cousin. As soon as I am seventeen, I
go to the army--every gentleman goes to the army. Look! who comes here--ho,
ho!" he burst into a laugh. "'Tis Mistress Trix, with a new ribbon; I knew
she would put one on as soon as she heard a captain was coming to supper."

This laughing colloquy took place in the hall of Walcote House: in the
midst of which is a staircase that leads from an open gallery, where are
the doors of the sleeping-chambers: and from one of these, a wax candle in
her hand, and illuminating her, came Mistress Beatrix--the light falling
indeed upon the scarlet ribbon which she wore, and upon the most brilliant
white neck in the world.

Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond the common height;
and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of beauty, that his eyes might
well show surprise and delight at beholding her. In hers there was a
brightness so lustrous and melting, that I have seen a whole assembly
follow her as if by an attraction irresistible: and that night the great
duke was at the playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked
(she chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theatre at the same
moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty: that is, her eyes,
hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes, were dark: her hair curling with rich
undulations, and waving over her shoulders; but her complexion was as
dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks, which were a bright
red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper crimson. Her mouth and
chin, they said, were too large and full, and so they might be for a
goddess in marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look
was love, whose voice was the sweetest low song, whose shape was perfect
symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose foot as it planted itself on
the ground, was firm but flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or
slow, was always perfect grace--agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen--now
melting, now imperious,