fancy dwelt on most, or her reason deemed most important. Since the death
of her father the dean, this lady hath admitted a certain latitude of
theological reading, which her orthodox father would never have allowed;
his favourite writers appealing more to reason and antiquity than to the
passions or imaginations of their readers, so that the works of Bishop
Taylor, nay, those of Mr. Baxter and Mr. Law, have in reality found more
favour with my Lady Castlewood than the severer volumes of our great
English schoolmen.

In later life, at the University, Esmond reopened the controversy, and
pursued it in a very different manner, when his patrons had determined for
him that he was to embrace the ecclesiastical life. But though his
mistress's heart was in this calling, his own never was much. After that
first fervour of simple devotion, which his beloved Jesuit priest had
inspired in him, speculative theology took but little hold upon the young
man's mind. When his early credulity was disturbed, and his saints and
virgins taken out of his worship, to rank little higher than the
divinities of Olympus, his belief became acquiescence rather than ardour;
and he made his mind up to assume the cassock and bands, as another man
does to wear a breastplate and jack-boots, or to mount a merchant's desk
for a livelihood, and from obedience and necessity, rather than from
choice. There were scores of such men in Mr. Esmond's time at the
Universities, who were going to the Church with no better calling than
his.

When Thomas Tusher was gone, a feeling of no small depression and disquiet
fell upon young Esmond, of which, though he did not complain, his kind
mistress must have divined the cause: for soon after she showed not only
that she understood the reason of Harry's melancholy, but could provide a
remedy for it. Her habit was thus to watch, unobservedly, those to whom
duty or affection bound her, and to prevent their designs, or to fulfil
them, when she had the power. It was this lady's disposition to think
kindnesses, and devise silent bounties, and to scheme benevolence for
those about her. We take such goodness, for the most part, as if it was
our due; the Marys who bring ointment for our feet get but little thanks.
Some of us never feel this devotion at all, or are moved by it to
gratitude or acknowledgement; others only recall it years after, when the
days are past in which those sweet kindnesses were spent on us, and we
offer ba