“Huzzay, old Pincot!” again says my lord; and my dear lady’s lips looked as if they were trembling with a prayer.  She would have Harry lead in Beatrix to the supper-room, going herself with my young Lord Viscount; and to this party came Tom Tusher directly, whom four at least out of the company of five wished away.  Away he went, however, as soon as the sweetmeats were put down, and then, by the great crackling fire, his mistress or Beatrix, with her blushing graces, filling his glass for him, Harry told the story of his campaign, and passed the most delightful night his life had ever known.  The sun was up long ere he was, so deep, sweet, and refreshing was his slumber.  He woke as if angels had been watching at his bed all night.  I dare say one that was as pure and loving as an angel had blessed his sleep with her prayers.

Next morning the chaplain read prayers to the little household at Walcote, as the custom was; Esmond thought Mistress Beatrix did not listen to Tusher’s exhortation much:  her eyes were wandering everywhere during the service, at least whenever he looked up he met them.  Perhaps he also was not very attentive to his Reverence the Chaplain.  “This might have been my life,” he was thinking; “this might have been my duty from now till old age.  Well, were it not a pleasant one to be with these dear friends and part from ’em no more?  Until—­until the destined lover comes and takes away pretty Beatrix”—­and the best part of Tom Tusher’s exposition, which may have been very learned and eloquent, was quite lost to poor Harry by this vision of the destined lover, who put the preacher out.

All the while of the prayers, Beatrix knelt a little way before Harry Esmond.  The red stockings were changed for a pair of gray, and black shoes, in which her feet looked to the full as pretty.  All the roses of spring could not vie with the brightness of her complexion; Esmond thought he had never seen anything like the sunny lustre of her eyes.  My Lady Viscountess looked fatigued, as if with watching, and her face was pale.

Miss Beatrix remarked these signs of indisposition in her mother and deplored them.  “I am an old woman,” says my lady, with a kind smile; “I cannot hope to look as young as you do, my dear.”

“She’ll never look as good as you do if she lives till she’s a hundred,” says my lord, taking his mother by the waist, and kissing her hand.

“Do I look very wicked, cousin?” says Beatrix, turning full round on Esmond, with her pretty face so close under his chin, that the soft perfumed hair touched it.  She laid her finger-tips on his sleeve as she spoke; and he put his other hand over hers.

“I’m like your looking-glass,” says he, “and that can’t flatter you.”

“He means that you are always looking at him, my dear,” says her mother, archly.  Beatrix ran away from Esmond at this, and flew to her mamma, whom she kissed, stopping my lady’s mouth with her pretty hand.