me, inviting more company thither, passing the greater part of
his days in the hunting-field, or over the bottle as before; but with
this difference, that the poor wife could no longer see now, as she had
done formerly, the light of love kindled in his eyes. He was with her,
but that flame was out: and that once welcome beacon no more shone
there.

What were this lady's feelings when forced to admit the truth whereof
her foreboding glass had given her only too true warning, that within
her beauty her reign had ended, and the days of her love were over?
What does a seaman do in a storm if mast and rudder are carried away? He
ships a jurymast, and steers as he best can with an oar. What happens if
your roof falls in a tempest? After the first stun of the calamity the
sufferer starts up, gropes around to see that the children are safe, and
puts them under a shed out of the rain. If the palace burns down, you
take shelter in the barn. What man's life is not overtaken by one or
more of these tornadoes that send us out of the course, and fling us on
rocks to shelter as best we may?

When Lady Castlewood found that her great ship had gone down, she began
as best she might after she had rallied from the effects of the loss,
to put out small ventures of happiness; and hope for little gains and
returns, as a merchant on 'Change, indocilis pauperiem pati, having lost
his thousands, embarks a few guineas upon the next ship. She laid out
her all upon her children, indulging them beyond all measure, as was
inevitable with one of her kindness of disposition; giving all her
thoughts to their welfare--learning, that she might teach them; and
improving her own many natural gifts and feminine accomplishments, that
she might impart them to her young ones. To be doing good for some one
else, is the life of most good women. They are exuberant of kindness, as
it were, and must impart it to some one. She made herself a good scholar
of French, Italian, and Latin, having been grounded in these by her
father in her youth; hiding these gifts from her husband out of fear,
perhaps, that they should offend him, for my lord was no bookman--pish'd
and psha'd at the notion of learned ladies, and would have been angry
that his wife could construe out of a Latin book of which he could
scarce understand two words. Young Esmond was usher, or house tutor,
under her or over her, as it might happen. During my lord's many
absences, these school-days would go o