ry very early youth, she had felt no tender sentiment for
any human being. Such a woman would, no doubt, watch her own sensations
very keenly, and must have smiled after the appearance of this boy, to
mark how her pulses rose above their ordinary beat. She longed after
him. She felt her cheeks flush with happiness when he came near. Her
eyes greeted him with welcome, and followed him with fond pleasure. "Ah,
if she could have had a son like that, how she would have loved him!"
"Wait," says Conscience, the dark scoffer mocking within her, "wait,
Beatrix Esmond! You know you will weary of this inclination, as you have
of all. You know, when the passing fancy has subsided, that the boy may
perish, and you won't have a tear for him; or talk, and you weary of
his stories; and that your lot in life is to be lonely--lonely." Well?
suppose life be a desert? There are halting-places and shades, and
refreshing waters; let us profit by them for to-day. We know that we
must march when to-morrow comes, and tramp on our destiny onward.

She smiled inwardly, whilst following the lad's narrative, to recognise
in his simple tales about his mother, traits of family resemblance.
Madam Esmond was very jealous?--Yes, that Harry owned. She was fond of
Colonel Washington? She liked him, but only as a friend, Harry declared.
A hundred times he had heard his mother vow that she had no other
feeling towards him. He was ashamed to have to own that he himself had
been once absurdly jealous of the Colonel. "Well, you will see that my
half-sister will never forgive him," said Madam Beatrix. "And you need
not be surprised, sir, at women taking a fancy to men younger than
themselves; for don't I dote upon you; and don't all these Castlewood
people crevent with jealousy?"

However great might be their jealousy of Madame de Bernstein's new
favourite, the family of Castlewood allowed no feeling of illwill to
appear in their language or behaviour to their young guest and
kinsman. After a couple of days' stay in the ancestral house, Mr.
Harry Warrington had become Cousin Harry with young and middle-aged.
Especially in Madame Bernstein's presence, the Countess of Castlewood
was most gracious to her kinsman, and she took many amiable private
opportunities of informing the Baroness how charming the young Huron
was, of vaunting the elegance of his manners and appearance, and
wondering how, in his distant province, the child should ever have
learned to be so p