le household, that Harry came to be quite of the
religion of his house, and his dear mistress, of which he has ever since
been a professing member.

My lady had three idols: her lord, the good Viscount of Castlewood,--her
little son, who had his father's looks and curly, brown hair,--and her
daughter Beatrix, who had his eyes--were there ever such beautiful eyes
in the world?

A pretty sight it was to see the fair mistress of Castlewood, her little
daughter at her knee, and her domestics gathered around her, reading the
Morning Prayer of the English Church. Esmond long remembered how she
looked and spoke, kneeling reverently before the sacred book, the sun
shining upon her golden hair until it made a halo round about her, a
dozen of the servants of the house kneeling in a line opposite their
mistress. For a while Harry Esmond as a good papist kept apart from these
mysteries, but Dr. Tusher, showing him that the prayers read were those
of the Church of all ages, he came presently to kneel down with the rest
of the household in the parlour; and before a couple of years my lady had
made a thorough convert. Indeed, the boy loved her so much that he would
have subscribed to anything she bade him at that time, and the happiest
period of all his life was this: when the young mother, with her daughter
and son, and the orphan lad whom she protected, read and worked and
played, and were children together.

But as Esmond grew, and observed for himself, he found much to read and
think of outside that fond circle of kinsfolk. He read more books than
they cared to study with him; was alone in the midst of them many a time,
and passed nights over labours, useless perhaps, but in which they could
not join him. His dear mistress divined his thoughts with her usual
jealous watchfulness of affection; began to forebode a time when he
would escape from his home nest; and at his eager protestations to the
contrary, would only sigh and shake her head, knowing that some day her
predictions would come true.

Meanwhile evil fortune came upon the inmates of Castlewood Hall; brought
thither by no other than Harry himself. In those early days, before Lady
Mary Wortley Montague brought home the custom of inoculation from Turkey,
smallpox was considered, as indeed it was, the most dreadful scourge of
the world. The pestilence would enter a village and destroy half its
inhabitants. At its approach not only the beautiful, but the strongest
were ala