such beautiful eyes in the world? All the house
was arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure. She liked
the small gentry round about to come and pay him court, never caring for
admiration for herself; those who wanted to be well with the lady must
admire him. Not regarding her dress, she would wear a gown to rags,
because he had once liked it: and, if he brought her a brooch or a
ribbon, would prefer it to all the most costly articles of her wardrobe.

My lord went to London every year for six weeks, and the family being
too poor to appear at Court with any figure, he went alone. It was not
until he was out of sight that her face showed any sorrow: and what
a joy when he came back! What preparation before his return! The fond
creature had his arm-chair at the chimney-side--delighting to put the
children in it, and look at them there. Nobody took his place at the
table; but his silver tankard stood there as when my lord was present.

A pretty sight it was to see, during my lord's absence, or on those many
mornings when sleep or headache kept him a-bed, this fair young lady of
Castlewood, her little daughter at her knee, and her domestics gathered
round 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 kneeled in a line
opposite their mistress; for a while Harry Esmond kept apart from these
mysteries, but Doctor Tusher showing him that the prayers read were
those of the Church of all ages, and the boy's own inclination prompting
him to be always as near as he might to his mistress, and to think all
things she did right, from listening to the prayers in the ante-chamber,
he came presently to kneel down with the rest of the household in
the parlor; and before a couple of years my lady had made a thorough
convert. Indeed, the boy loved his catechiser so much that he would have
subscribed to anything she bade him, and was never tired of listening to
her fond discourse and simple comments upon the book, which she read to
him in a voice of which it was difficult to resist the sweet persuasion
and tender appealing kindness. This friendly controversy, and the
intimacy which it occasioned, bound the lad more fondly than ever to his
mistress. The happiest period of all his life was this; and the
young mother, w