e to prolong them.

"Faith," says Westbury, "the little scholar was the first to begin the
quarrel--I mind me of it now--at Lockit's. I always hated that fellow Mohun.
What was the real cause of the quarrel betwixt him and poor Frank? I would
wager 'twas a woman."

"'Twas a quarrel about play--on my word, about play," Harry said. "My poor
lord lost great sums to his guest at Castlewood. Angry words passed
between them; and, though Lord Castlewood was the kindest and most pliable
soul alive, his spirit was very high; and hence that meeting which has
brought us all here," says Mr. Esmond, resolved never to acknowledge that
there had ever been any other but cards for the duel.

"I do not like to use bad words of a nobleman," says Westbury; "but if my
Lord Mohun were a commoner, I would say, 'twas a pity he was not hanged.
He was familiar with dice and women at a time other boys are at school,
being birched; he was as wicked as the oldest rake, years ere he had done
growing; and handled a sword and a foil, and a bloody one too, before ever
he used a razor. He held poor Will Mountford in talk that night, when
bloody Dick Hill ran him through. He will come to a bad end, will that
young lord; and no end is bad enough for him," says honest Mr. Westbury:
whose prophecy was fulfilled twelve years after, upon that fatal day when
Mohun fell, dragging down one of the bravest and greatest gentlemen in
England in his fall.

From Mr. Steele, then, who brought the public rumour, as well as his own
private intelligence, Esmond learned the movements of his unfortunate
mistress. Steele's heart was of very inflammable composition; and the
gentleman usher spoke in terms of boundless admiration both of the widow
(that most beautiful woman, as he said) and of her daughter, who, in the
captain's eyes, was a still greater paragon. If the pale widow, whom
Captain Richard, in his poetic rapture, compared to a Niobe in tears--to a
Sigismunda--to a weeping Belvidera, was an object the most lovely and
pathetic which his eyes had ever beheld, or for which his heart had
melted, even her ripened perfections and beauty were as nothing compared
to the promise of that extreme loveliness which the good captain saw in
her daughter. It was _matre pulcra filia pulcrior_. Steele composed
sonnets whilst he was on duty in his prince's antechamber, to the maternal
and filial charms. He would speak for hours about them to Harry Esmond;
and, indeed, he could have