" she
said in English, "I forbid you to touch Mr. Esmond. Come away, child--come
to your room. Come to your room--I wish your reverence good night--and you,
sir, had you not better go back to your friends at the alehouse?" Her
eyes, ordinarily so kind, darted flashes of anger as she spoke; and she
tossed up her head (which hung down commonly) with the mien of a princess.

"Hey-day!" says my lord, who was standing by the fireplace--indeed he was
in the position to which he generally came by that hour of the
evening--"Hey-day! Rachel, what are you in a passion about? Ladies ought
never to be in a passion. Ought they, Doctor Tusher? though it does good
to see Rachel in a passion--Damme, Lady Castlewood, you look dev'lish
handsome in a passion."

"It is, my lord, because Mr. Henry Esmond, having nothing to do with his
time here, and not having a taste for our company, has been to the
alehouse, where he has _some friends_."

My lord burst out with a laugh and an oath--"You young sly-boots, you've
been at Nancy Sievewright. D---- the young hypocrite, who'd have thought it
in him? I say, Tusher, he's been after----"

"Enough, my lord," said my lady, "don't insult me with this talk."

"Upon my word," said poor Harry, ready to cry with shame and
mortification, "the honour of that young person is perfectly unstained for
me."

"Oh, of course, of course," says my lord, more and more laughing and
tipsy. "Upon his _honour_, doctor--Nancy Sieve----"

"Take Mistress Beatrix to bed," my lady cried at this moment to Mrs.
Tucker her woman, who came in with her ladyship's tea. "Put her into my
room--no, into yours," she added quickly. "Go, my child: go, I say: not a
word!" And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority from
one who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the room
with a scared countenance and waited even to burst out a-crying, until she
got to the door with Mrs. Tucker.

For once her mother took little heed of her sobbing, and continued to
speak eagerly--"My lord," she said, "this young man--your dependant--told me
just now in French--he was ashamed to speak in his own language--that he had
been at the ale-house all day, where he has had that little wretch who is
now ill of the small-pox on his knee. And he comes home reeking from that
place--yes, reeking from it--and takes my boy into his lap without shame,
and sits down by me, yes, by _me_. He may have killed Frank for what I
know--k