appy is duty
enough for me."

"Happy!" says she; "but indeed I ought to be, with my children, and--"

"Not happy!" cried Esmond (for he knew what her life was, though he and
his mistress never spoke a word concerning it). "If not happiness,
it may be ease. Let me stay and work for you--let me stay and be your
servant."

"Indeed, you are best away," said my lady, laughing, as she put her hand
on the boy's head for a moment. "You shall stay in no such dull place.
You shall go to college and distinguish yourself as becomes your name.
That is how you shall please me best; and--and if my children want you,
or I want you, you shall come to us; and I know we may count on you."

"May heaven forsake me if you may not!" Harry said, getting up from his
knee.

"And my knight longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight," said
my lady, laughing; which speech made Harry Esmond start, and turn red;
for indeed the very thought was in his mind, that he would like
that some chance should immediately happen whereby he might show his
devotion. And it pleased him to think that his lady had called him "her
knight," and often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed
that he might be her true knight, too.

My lady's bed-chamber window looked out over the country, and you could
see from it the purple hills beyond Castlewood village, the green common
betwixt that and the Hall, and the old bridge which crossed over the
river. When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran
alongside his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a
moment, and looked back at the house where the best part of his life had
been passed. It lay before him with its gray familiar towers, a pinnacle
or two shining in the sun, the buttresses and terrace walls casting
great blue shades on the grass. And Harry remembered, all his life
after, how he saw his mistress at the window looking out on him in a
white robe, the little Beatrix's chestnut curls resting at her mother's
side. Both waved a farewell to him, and little Frank sobbed to leave
him. Yes, he WOULD be his lady's true knight, he vowed in his heart; he
waved her an adieu with his hat. The village people had Good-by to say
to him too. All knew that Master Harry was going to college, and most of
them had a kind word and a look of farewell. I do not stop to say what
adventures he began to imagine, or what career to devise for himself
before he had ridden three miles from h