in this attitude of humility, enters behind him a
portly gentleman, with a little girl of four years old in his hand. The
gentleman burst into a great laugh at the lady and her adorer, with
his little queer figure, his sallow face, and long black hair. The lady
blushed, and seemed to deprecate his ridicule by a look of appeal to her
husband, for it was my Lord Viscount who now arrived, and whom the lad
knew, having once before seen him in the late lord's lifetime.

"So this is the little priest" says my lord, looking down at the lad;
"welcome, kinsman."

"He is saying his prayers to mamma," says the little girl, who came up
to her papa's knees; and my lord burst out into another great laugh at
this, and kinsman Henry looked very silly. He invented a half-dozen of
speeches in reply, but 'twas months afterwards when he thought of this
adventure: as it was, he had never a word in answer.

"Le pauvre enfant, il n'a que nous," says the lady, looking to her lord;
and the boy, who understood her, though doubtless she thought otherwise,
thanked her with all his heart for her kind speech.

"And he shan't want for friends here," says my lord in a kind voice,
"shall he, little Trix?"

The little girl, whose name was Beatrix, and whom her papa called by
this diminutive, looked at Henry Esmond solemnly, with a pair of large
eyes, and then a smile shone over her face, which was as beautiful as
that of a cherub, and she came up and put out a little hand to him. A
keen and delightful pang of gratitude, happiness, affection, filled the
orphan child's heart, as he received from the protectors, whom heaven
had sent to him, these touching words and tokens of friendliness and
kindness. But an hour since, he had felt quite alone in the world: when
he heard the great peal of bells from Castlewood church ringing that
morning to welcome the arrival of the new lord and lady, it had rung
only terror and anxiety to him, for he knew not how the new owner would
deal with him; and those to whom he formerly looked for protection were
forgotten or dead. Pride and doubt too had kept him within-doors, when
the Vicar and the people of the village, and the servants of the house,
had gone out to welcome my Lord Castlewood--for Henry Esmond was no
servant, though a dependant; no relative, though he bore the name and
inherited the blood of the house; and in the midst of the noise and
acclamations attending the arrival of the new lord (for whom, you may