ith her daughter and son, and the orphan lad whom she
protected, read and worked and played, and were children together.
If the lady looked forward--as what fond woman does not?--towards the
future, she had no plans from which Harry Esmond was left out; and a
thousand and a thousand times, in his passionate and impetuous way,
he vowed that no power should separate him from his mistress; and only
asked for some chance to happen by which he might show his fidelity
to her. Now, at the close of his life, as he sits and recalls in
tranquillity the happy and busy scenes of it, he can think, not
ungratefully, that he has been faithful to that early vow. Such a life
is so simple that years may be chronicled in a few lines. But few men's
life-voyages are destined to be all prosperous; and this calm of which
we are speaking was soon to come to an end.

As Esmond grew, and observed for himself, he found of necessity much to
read and think of outside that fond circle of kinsfolk who had admitted
him to join hand with them. He read more books than they cared to study
with him; was alone in the midst of them many a time, and passed nights
over labors, futile perhaps, but in which they could not join him. His
dear mistress divined his thoughts with her usual jealous watchfulness
of affection: began to forebode a time when he would escape from his
home-nest; and, at his eager protestations to the contrary, would
only sigh and shake her head. Before those fatal decrees in life are
executed, there are always secret previsions and warning omens. When
everything yet seems calm, we are aware that the storm is coming. Ere
the happy days were over, two at least of that home-party felt that they
were drawing to a close; and were uneasy, and on the look-out for the
cloud which was to obscure their calm.

'Twas easy for Harry to see, however much his lady persisted in
obedience and admiration for her husband, that my lord tired of his
quiet life, and grew weary, and then testy, at those gentle bonds with
which his wife would have held him. As they say the Grand Lama of Thibet
is very much fatigued by his character of divinity, and yawns on
his altar as his bonzes kneel and worship him, many a home-god grows
heartily sick of the reverence with which his family-devotees pursue
him, and sighs for freedom and for his old life, and to be off the
pedestal on which his dependants would have him sit for ever, whilst
they adore him, and ply him with flo