other. "I am
sure my Henry will always defend him."

"But there will be a peace before next year; we know it for certain,"
cries the maid of honour. "Lord Marlborough will be dismissed, and that
horrible duchess turned out of all her places. Her Majesty won't speak to
her now. Did you see her at Bushy, Harry? she is furious, and she ranges
about the park like a lioness, and tears people's eyes out."

"And the Princess Anne will send for somebody," says my lady of Chelsea,
taking out her medal and kissing it.

"Did you see the king at Oudenarde, Harry?" his mistress asked. She was a
stanch Jacobite, and would no more have thought of denying her king than
her God.

"I saw the young Hanoverian only:" Harry said, "the Chevalier de St.
George----"

"The king, sir, the king!" said the ladies and Miss Beatrix; and she
clapped her pretty hands, and cried, "Vive le Roy!"

By this time there came a thundering knock, that drove in the doors of the
house almost. It was three o'clock, and the company were arriving; and
presently the servant announced Captain Steele and his lady.

Captain and Mrs. Steele, who were the first to arrive, had driven to
Kensington from their country-house, the Hovel at Hampton Wick, "Not from
our mansion in Bloomsbury Square," as Mrs. Steele took care to inform the
ladies. Indeed Harry had ridden away from Hampton that very morning,
leaving the couple by the ears; for from the chamber where he lay, in a
bed that was none of the cleanest, and kept awake by the company which he
had in his own bed, and the quarrel which was going on in the next room,
he could hear both night and morning the curtain lecture which Mrs. Steele
was in the habit of administering to poor Dick.

At night it did not matter so much for the culprit; Dick was fuddled, and
when in that way no scolding could interrupt his benevolence. Mr. Esmond
could hear him coaxing and speaking in that maudlin manner, which punch
and claret produce, to his beloved Prue, and beseeching her to remember
that there was a _distiwisht officer ithe nex roob_, who would overhear
her. She went on, nevertheless, calling him a drunken wretch, and was only
interrupted in her harangues by the captain's snoring.

In the morning, the unhappy victim awoke to a headache and consciousness,
and the dialogue of the night was resumed. "Why do you bring captains home
to dinner when there's not a guinea in the house? How am I to give dinners
when you leave me with