, "I used always to pity Esau--and I think I am on his
side--though papa tried very hard to convince me the other way.

" 'Poor Harry!' says the old lady. 'So you want something left to poor
Harry: he, he! (reach me the drops, cousin). Well then, my dear, since you
want poor Harry to have a fortune: you must understand that ever since the
year 1691, a week after the battle of the Boyne, where the Prince of
Orange defeated his royal sovereign and father, for which crime he is now
suffering in flames (ugh, ugh), Henry Esmond hath been Marquis of Esmond
and Earl of Castlewood in the United Kingdom, and Baron and Viscount
Castlewood of Shandon in Ireland, and a baronet--and his eldest son will
be, by courtesy, styled Earl of Castlewood--he! he! What do you think of
that, my dear?'

" 'Gracious mercy! how long have you known this?' " cries the other lady
(thinking perhaps that the old marchioness was wandering in her wits).

" 'My husband, before he was converted, was a wicked wretch,' " the sick
sinner continued. " 'When he was in the Low Countries he seduced a
weaver's daughter; and added to his wickedness by marrying her. And then
he came to this country and married me--a poor girl--a poor innocent young
thing--I say,' though she was past forty, you know, Harry, when she
married: and as for being innocent--'Well,' she went on, 'I knew nothing of
my lord's wickedness for three years after our marriage, and after the
burial of our poor little boy I had it done over again, my dear. I had
myself married by Father Holt in Castlewood chapel, as soon as ever I
heard the creature was dead--and having a great illness then, arising from
another sad disappointment I had, the priest came and told me that my lord
had a son before our marriage, and that the child was at nurse in England;
and I consented to let the brat be brought home, and a queer little
melancholy child it was when it came.

" 'Our intention was to make a priest of him: and he was bred for this,
until you perverted him from it, you wicked woman. And I had again hopes
of giving an heir to my lord, when he was called away upon the king's
business, and died fighting gloriously at the Boyne Water.

" 'Should I be disappointed--I owed your husband no love, my dear, for he
had jilted me in the most scandalous way; and I thought there would be
time to declare the little weaver's son for the true heir. But I was
carried off to prison, where your husband was so kind to me--