'tis good to see a happy face," says he, "you see that." My lady said
"Amen", with a sigh; and Harry thought the memory of her dead lord rose up
and rebuked her back again into sadness; for her face lost the smile, and
resumed its look of melancholy.

"Why, Harry, how fine we look in our scarlet and silver, and our black
periwig," cries my lord. "Mother, I am tired of my own hair. When shall I
have a peruke? Where did you get your steenkirk, Harry?"

"It's some of my lady dowager's lace," says Harry; "she gave me this and a
number of other fine things."

"My lady dowager isn't such a bad woman," my lord continued.

"She's not so--so red as she's painted," says Miss Beatrix.

Her brother broke into a laugh. "I'll tell her you said so; by the lord,
Trix, I will," he cries out.

"She'll know that you hadn't the wit to say it, my lord," says Miss
Beatrix.

"We won't quarrel the first day Harry's here, will we, mother?" said the
young lord. "We'll see if we can get on to the new year without a fight.
Have some of this Christmas pie? and here comes the tankard; no, it's
Pincot with the tea."

"Will the captain choose a dish?" asks Mistress Beatrix.

"I say, Harry," my lord goes on, "I'll show thee my horses after
breakfast; and we'll go a bird-netting to-night, and on Monday there's a
cock-match at Winchester--do you love cock-fighting, Harry?--between the
gentlemen of Sussex and the gentlemen of Hampshire, at ten pound the
battle, and fifty pound the odd battle to show one-and-twenty cocks."

"And what will you do, Beatrix, to amuse our kinsman?" asks my lady.

"I'll listen to him," says Beatrix; "I am sure he has a hundred things to
tell us. And I'm jealous already of the Spanish ladies. Was that a
beautiful nun at Cadiz that you rescued from the soldiers? Your man talked
of it last night in the kitchen, and Mrs. Betty told me this morning as
she combed my hair. And he says you must be in love, for you sat on deck
all night, and scribbled verses all day in your table-book." Harry thought
if he had wanted a subject for verses yesterday, to-day he had found one:
and not all the Lindamiras and Ardelias of the poets were half so
beautiful as this young creature; but he did not say so, though some one
did for him.

This was his dear lady who, after the meal was over, and the young people
were gone, began talking of her children with Mr. Esmond, and of the
characters of one and the other, and of her hopes and fears