ich he refused to yield to the temptation.
Monsieur Baptiste took off his hat, blushing at the hint Colonel Esmond
ventured to give him, and said:--"_Tenez, elle est jolie, la petite mere;
Foi-de-Chevalier! elle est charmante; mais l'autre, qui est cette nymphe,
cet astre qui brille, cette Diane qui descend sur nous?_" And he started
back, and pushed forward, as Beatrix was descending the stair. She was in
colours for the first time at her own house; she wore the diamonds Esmond
gave her; it had been agreed between them, that she should wear these
brilliants on the day when the king should enter the house, and a queen
she looked, radiant in charms, and magnificent and imperial in beauty.

Castlewood himself was startled by that beauty and splendour; he stepped
back and gazed at his sister as though he had not been aware before (nor
was he, very likely) how perfectly lovely she was, and I thought blushed
as he embraced her. The prince could not keep his eyes off her; he quite
forgot his menial part, though he had been schooled to it, and a little
light portmanteau prepared expressly that he should carry it. He pressed
forward before my lord viscount. 'Twas lucky the servants' eyes were busy
in other directions, or they must have seen that this was no servant, or
at least a very insolent and rude one.

Again Colonel Esmond was obliged to cry out, "Baptiste", in a loud
imperious voice, "have a care to the valise"; at which hint the wilful
young man ground his teeth together with something very like a curse
between them, and then gave a brief look of anything but pleasure to his
Mentor. Being reminded, however, he shouldered the little portmanteau, and
carried it up the stair, Esmond preceding him, and a servant with lighted
tapers. He flung down his burden sulkily in the bedchamber:--"A prince that
will wear a crown must wear a mask," says Mr. Esmond, in French.

"_Ah, peste!_ I see how it is," says Monsieur Baptiste, continuing the
talk in French. "The Great Serious is seriously"--"alarmed for Monsieur
Baptiste," broke in the colonel. Esmond neither liked the tone with which
the prince spoke of the ladies, nor the eyes with which he regarded them.

The bedchamber and the two rooms adjoining it, the closet and the
apartment which was to be called my lord's parlour, were already lighted
and awaiting their occupier; and the collation laid for my lord's supper.
Lord Castlewood and his mother and sister came up the stair a mi