on that evening taken her usual place, which
generally she was glad enough to have, upon her tutor's lap. For
Beatrix, from the earliest time, was jealous of every caress which was
given to her little brother Frank. She would fling away even from the
maternal arms, if she saw Frank had been there before her; insomuch that
Lady Esmond was obliged not to show her love for her son in the presence
of the little girl, and embraced one or the other alone. She would turn
pale and red with rage if she caught signs of intelligence or affection
between Frank and his mother: would sit apart, and not speak for a whole
night, if she thought the boy had a better fruit or a larger cake than
hers; would fling away a ribbon if he had one; and from the earliest
age, sitting up in her little chair by the great fireplace opposite to
the corner where Lady Castlewood commonly sat at her embroidery, would
utter infantine sarcasms about the favor shown to her brother. These, if
spoken in the presence of Lord Castlewood, tickled and amused his humor;
he would pretend to love Frank best, and dandle and kiss him, and roar
with laughter at Beatrix's jealousy. But the truth is, my lord did not
often witness these scenes, nor very much trouble the quiet fireside at
which his lady passed many long evenings. My lord was hunting all day
when the season admitted; he frequented all the cock-fights and fairs
in the country, and would ride twenty miles to see a main fought, or two
clowns break their heads at a cudgelling-match; and he liked better to
sit in his parlor drinking ale and punch with Jack and Tom, than in
his wife's drawing-room: whither, if he came, he brought only too often
bloodshot eyes, a hiccupping voice, and a reeling gait. The management
of the house, and the property, the care of the few tenants and the
village poor, and the accounts of the estate, were in the hands of his
lady and her young secretary, Harry Esmond. My lord took charge of the
stables, the kennel, and the cellar--and he filled this and emptied it
too.

So it chanced that upon this very day, when poor Harry Esmond had had
the blacksmith's son, and the peer's son, alike upon his knee, little
Beatrix, who would come to her tutor willingly enough with her book and
her writing, had refused him, seeing the place occupied by her brother,
and, luckily for her, had sat at the further end of the room, away from
him, playing with a spaniel dog which she had, (and for which, by fit