didn't I know you before?"

My lord duke was as hot as a flame at this salute, but said never a word:
Beatrix made him a proud curtsy, and the two ladies quitted the room
together.

"When does your excellency go for Paris?" asks Colonel Esmond.

"As soon after the ceremony as may be," his grace answered. "'Tis fixed
for the first of December: it cannot be sooner. The equipage will not be
ready till then. The queen intends the embassy should be very grand--and I
have law business to settle. That ill-omened Mohun has come, or is coming,
to London again: we are in a lawsuit about my late Lord Gerard's property;
and he hath sent to me to meet him."

Chapter V. Mohun Appears For The Last Time In This History

Besides my Lord Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who, for family reasons, had
kindly promised his protection and patronage to Colonel Esmond, he had
other great friends in power now, both able and willing to assist him, and
he might, with such allies, look forward to as fortunate advancement in
civil life at home as he had got rapid promotion abroad. His grace was
magnanimous enough to offer to take Mr. Esmond as secretary on his Paris
embassy, but no doubt he intended that proposal should be rejected; at any
rate, Esmond could not bear the thoughts of attending his mistress farther
than the church-door after her marriage, and so declined that offer which
his generous rival made him.

Other gentlemen, in power, were liberal at least of compliments and
promises to Colonel Esmond. Mr. Harley, now become my Lord Oxford and
Mortimer, and installed Knight of the Garter on the same day as his grace
of Hamilton had received the same honour, sent to the colonel to say that
a seat in Parliament should be at his disposal presently, and Mr. St. John
held out many flattering hopes of advancement to the colonel when he
should enter the House. Esmond's friends were all successful, and the most
successful and triumphant of all was his dear old commander, General Webb,
who was now appointed Lieutenant-General of the Land Forces, and received
with particular honour by the ministry, by the queen, and the people out
of doors, who huzza'd the brave chief when they used to see him in his
chariot, going to the House or to the Drawing-room, or hobbling on foot to
his coach from St. Stephen's upon his glorious old crutch and stick, and
cheered him as loud as they had ever done Marlborough.

That great duke was utterly disgraced; and