looked at my
poor mother's grave in her convent. What matter to her now? No court of
law on earth, upon my mere word, would deprive my lord viscount and set me
up. I am the head of the house, dear lady; but Frank is Viscount of
Castlewood still. And rather than disturb him, I would turn monk, or
disappear in America."

As he spoke so to his dearest mistress, for whom he would have been
willing to give up his life, or to make any sacrifice any day, the fond
creature flung herself down on her knees before him, and kissed both his
hands in an outbreak of passionate love and gratitude, such as could not
but melt his heart, and make him feel very proud and thankful that God had
given him the power to show his love for her, and to prove it by some
little sacrifice on his own part. To be able to bestow benefits or
happiness on those one loves is sure the greatest blessing conferred upon
a man--and what wealth or name, or gratification of ambition or vanity,
could compare with the pleasure Esmond now had of being able to confer
some kindness upon his best and dearest friends?

"Dearest saint," says he--"purest soul, that has had so much to suffer,
that has blest the poor lonely orphan with such a treasure of love. 'Tis
for me to kneel, not for you: 'tis for me to be thankful that I can make
you happy. Hath my life any other aim? Blessed be God that I can serve
you! What pleasure, think you, could all the world give me compared to
that?"

"Don't raise me," she said, in a wild way, to Esmond, who would have
lifted her. "Let me kneel--let me kneel, and--and--worship you."

-------------------------------------

Before such a partial judge, as Esmond's dear mistress owned herself to
be, any cause which he might plead was sure to be given in his favour; and
accordingly he found little difficulty in reconciling her to the news
whereof he was bearer, of her son's marriage to a foreign lady, Papist
though she was. Lady Castlewood never could be brought to think so ill of
that religion as other people in England thought of it: she held that ours
was undoubtedly a branch of the Church Catholic, but that the Roman was
one of the main stems on which, no doubt, many errors had been grafted
(she was, for a woman, extraordinarily well versed in this controversy,
having acted, as a girl, as secretary to her father, the late dean, and
written many of his sermons, under his dictation); and if Frank had chosen
to marry a l