“I wish she would have you,” said Harry’s fond mistress, giving a hand to him.  He kissed the fair hand (’twas the prettiest dimpled little hand in the world, and my Lady Castlewood, though now almost forty years old, did not look to be within ten years of her age).  He kissed and kept her fair hand, as they talked together.

“Why,” says he, “should she hear me?  She knows what I would say.  Far or near, she knows I’m her slave.  I have sold myself for nothing, it may be.  Well, ’tis the price I choose to take.  I am worth nothing, or I am worth all.”

“You are such a treasure,” Esmond’s mistress was pleased to say, “that the woman who has your love, shouldn’t change it away against a kingdom, I think.  I am a country-bred woman, and cannot say but the ambitions of the town seem mean to me.  I never was awe-stricken by my Lady Duchess’s rank and finery, or afraid,” she added, with a sly laugh, “of anything but her temper.  I hear of Court ladies who pine because her Majesty looks cold on them; and great noblemen who would give a limb that they might wear a garter on the other.  This worldliness, which I can’t comprehend, was born with Beatrix, who, on the first day of her waiting, was a perfect courtier.  We are like sisters, and she the eldest sister, somehow.  She tells me I have a mean spirit.  I laugh, and say she adores a coach-and-six.  I cannot reason her out of her ambition.  ’Tis natural to her, as to me to love quiet, and be indifferent about rank and riches.  What are they, Harry? and for how long do they last?  Our home is not here.”  She smiled as she spoke, and looked like an angel that was only on earth on a visit.  “Our home is where the just are, and where our sins and sorrows enter not.  My father used to rebuke me, and say that I was too hopeful about heaven.  But I cannot help my nature, and grow obstinate as I grow to be an old woman; and as I love my children so, sure our Father loves us with a thousand and a thousand times greater love.  It must be that we shall meet yonder, and be happy.  Yes, you—­and my children, and my dear lord.  Do you know, Harry, since his death, it has always seemed to me as if his love came back to me, and that we are parted no more.  Perhaps he is here now, Harry—­I think he is.  Forgiven I am sure he is:  even Mr. Atterbury absolved him, and he died forgiving.  Oh, what a noble heart he had!  How generous he was!  I was but fifteen and a child when he married me.  How good he was to stoop to me!  He was always good to the poor and humble.”  She stopped, then presently, with a peculiar expression, as if her eyes were looking into heaven, and saw my lord there, she smiled, and gave a little laugh.  “I laugh to see you, sir,” she says; “when you come, it seems as if you never were away.”  One may put her words down, and remember them, but how describe her sweet tones, sweeter than music!