es of particular claret had
been already drunk up by the gentlemen, "besides ale, cider, Burgundy,
Lisbon, and Madeira," says Mrs. Mountain, enumerating the supplies.

But Madam Esmond was for having no stint in the hospitality of the
night. Mrs. Mountain was fain to bustle away with her keys to the sacred
vault where the Colonel's particular Bordeaux lay, surviving its master,
who, too, had long passed underground. As they went on their journey,
Mrs. Mountain asked whether any of the gentlemen had had too much?
Nathan thought Mister Broadbent was tipsy--he always tipsy; be then
thought the General gentleman was tipsy; and he thought Master George
was a lilly drunk.

"Master George!" cries Mrs. Mountain: "why, he will sit for days without
touching a drop."

Nevertheless, Nathan persisted in his notion that Master George was
a lilly drunk. He was always filling his glass, he had talked, he had
sung, he had cut jokes, especially against Mr. Washington, which made
Mr. Washington quite red and angry, Nathan said. "Well, well!" Mrs.
Mountain cried eagerly; "it was right a gentleman should make himself
merry in good company, and pass the bottle along with his friends."
And she trotted to the particular Bordeaux cellar with only the more
alacrity.

The tone of freedom and almost impertinence which young George Esmond
had adopted of late days towards Mr. Washington had very deeply vexed
and annoyed that gentleman. There was scarce half a dozen years'
difference of age between him and the Castlewood twins;--but Mr.
Washington had always been remarked for a discretion and sobriety much
beyond his time of life, whilst the boys of Castlewood seemed younger
than theirs. They had always been till now under their mother's anxious
tutelage, and had looked up to their neighbour of Mount Vernon as their
guide, director, friend--as, indeed, almost everybody seemed to do who
came in contact with the simple and upright young man. Himself of the
most scrupulous gravity and good breeding, in his communication with
other folks he appeared to exact, or, at any rate, to occasion, the same
behaviour. His nature was above levity and jokes: they seemed out of
place when addressed to him. He was slow of comprehending them: and they
slunk as it were abashed out of his society. "He always seemed great to
me," says Harry Warrington, in one of his letters many years after the
date of which we are writing; "and I never thought of him otherwise than