edy to drink. Do you see, far away in the west yonder,
the pious widow at her prayers for her son? Behind the trees at Oakhurst
a tender little heart, too, is beating for him, perhaps. When the
Prodigal Son was away carousing, were not love and forgiveness still on
the watch for him?

Amongst the inedited letters of the late Lord Orford, there is one which
the present learned editor, Mr. Peter Cunningbam, has omitted from his
collection, doubting possibly the authenticity of the document. Nay,
I myself have only seen a copy of it in the Warrington papers in Madam
Esmond's prim handwriting, and noted "Mr. H. Walpole's account of my son
Henry at London, and of Baroness Tusher,--wrote to General Conway."

"ARLINGTON STREET, Friday Night.

"I have come away, child, for a day or two from my devotions to our Lady
of Strawberry. Have I not been on my knees to her these three weeks,
and aren't the poor old joints full of rheumatism? A fit took me that
I would pay London a visit, that I would go to Vauxhall and Ranelagh.
Quoi! May I not have my rattle as well as other elderly babies? Suppose,
after being so long virtuous, I take a fancy to cakes and ale, shall
your reverence say nay to me? George Selwyn and Tony Storer and
your humble servant took boat at Westminster t'other night. Was it
Tuesday?--no, Tuesday I was with their Graces of Norfolk, who are just
from Tunbridge--it was Wednesday. How should I know? Wasn't I dead drunk
with a whole pint of lemonade I took at White's?

"The Norfolk folk had been entertaining me on Tuesday with the account
of a young savage Iroquois, Choctaw, or Virginian, who has lately been
making a little noise in our quarter of the globe. He is an offshoot of
that disreputable family of Esmond, Castlewood, of whom all the men are
gamblers and spendthrifts, and all the women--well, I shan't say the
word, lest Lady Ailesbury should be looking over your shoulder. Both the
late lords, my father told me, were in his pay, and the last one, a beau
of Queen Anne's reign, from a viscount advanced to be an earl through
the merits and intercession of his notorious old sister Bernstein, late
Tusher, nee Esmond--a great beauty, too, of her day, a favourite of the
old Pretender. She sold his secrets to my papa, who paid her for them;
and being nowise particular in her love for the Stuarts, came over to
the august Hanoverian house at present reigning over us. 'Will Horace
Walpole's tongue never stop scandal?'