people there with scarce any
attention at all. The ladies did not scruple to deny themselves when
he came; he could scarce have believed in such insincerity after their
caresses, their welcome, their repeated vows of affection; but happening
to sit with the Lamberts for an hour after he had called upon his aunt,
he saw her ladyship's chairmen arrive with an empty chair, and his aunt
step out and enter the vehicle, and not even blush when he made her a
bow from the opposite window. To be denied by his own relations--to have
that door which had opened to him so kindly, slammed in his face! He
would not have believed such a thing possible, poor simple Harry said.
Perhaps he thought the door-knocker had a tender heart, and was not made
of brass; not more changed than the head of that knocker was my Lady
Warrington's virtuous face when she passed her nephew.

"My father's own brother's wife! What have I done to offend her? Oh,
Aunt Lambert, Aunt Lambert, did you ever see such cold-heartedness?"
cries out Harry, with his usual impetuosity.

"Do we make any difference to you, my dear Harry?" says Aunt Lambert,
with a side look at her youngest daughter. "The world may look coldly at
you, but we don't belong to it: so you may come to us in safety."

"In this house you are different from other people," replies Harry. "I
don't know how, but I always feel quiet and happy somehow when I come to
you."

"Quis me uno vivit felicior? aut magis hac est
Optandum vita dicere quis potuit?"

calls out General Lambert. "Do you know where I got these verses, Mr.
Gownsman?" and he addresses his son from college, who is come to pass
an Easter holiday with his parents. "You got them out of Catullus, sir,"
says the scholar.

"I got them out of no such thing, sir. I got them out of my favourite
Democritus Junior--out of old Burton, who has provided many indifferent
scholars with learning;" and who and Montaigne, were favourite authors
with the good General.

CHAPTER LVIII. Where we do what Cats may do

We have said how our Virginians, with a wisdom not uncommon in
youth, had chosen to adopt strong Jacobite opinions, and to profess a
prodigious affection for the exiled royal family. The banished prince
had recognised Madam Esmond's father as Marquis of Esmond, and she did
not choose to be very angry with an unfortunate race, that, after all,
was so willing to acknowledge the merits of her family. As for any
little scandal