“And from whom?” again asked Colonel Esmond—­and his mistress then told him that on her death-bed the Dowager Countess, sending for her, had presented her with this dismal secret as a legacy. “’Twas very malicious of the Dowager,” Lady Esmond said, “to have had it so long, and to have kept the truth from me.”  “Cousin Rachel,” she said,—­and Esmond’s mistress could not forbear smiling as she told the story—­“Cousin Rachel,” cries the Dowager, “I have sent for you, as the doctors say I may go off any day in this dysentery; and to ease my conscience of a great load that has been on it.  You always have been a poor creature and unfit for great honor, and what I have to say won’t, therefore, affect you so much.  You must know, Cousin Rachel, that I have left my house, plate, and furniture, three thousand pounds in money, and my diamonds that my late revered Saint and Sovereign, King James, presented me with, to my Lord Viscount Castlewood.”

“To my Frank?” says Lady Castlewood; “I was in hopes—­”

To Viscount Castlewood, my dear; Viscount Castlewood and Baron Esmond of Shandon in the Kingdom of Ireland, Earl and Marquis of Esmond under patent of his Majesty King James the Second, conferred upon my husband the late Marquis—­for I am Marchioness of Esmond before God and man.”

“And have you left poor Harry nothing, dear Marchioness?” asks Lady Castlewood (she hath told me the story completely since with her quiet arch way; the most charming any woman ever had:  and I set down the narrative here at length, so as to have done with it).  “And have you left poor Harry nothing?” asks my dear lady:  “for you know, Henry,” she says with her sweet smile, “I used always to pity Esau—­and I think I am on his side—­though papa tried very hard to convince me the other way.”

“Poor Harry!” says the old lady.  “So you want something left to poor Harry:  he,—­he! (reach me the drops, cousin).  Well, then, my dear, since you want poor Harry to have a fortune, you must understand that ever since the year 1691, a week after the battle of the Boyne, where the Prince of Orange defeated his royal sovereign and father, for which crime he is now suffering in flames (ugh! ugh!) Henry Esmond hath been Marquis of Esmond and Earl of Castlewood in the United Kingdom, and Baron and Viscount Castlewood of Shandon in Ireland, and a Baronet—­and his eldest son will be, by courtesy, styled Earl of Castlewood—­he! he!  What do you think of that, my dear?”

“Gracious mercy! how long have you known this?” cries the other lady (thinking perhaps that the old Marchioness was wandering in her wits).

“My husband, before he was converted, was a wicked wretch,” the sick sinner continued.  “When he was in the Low Countries he seduced a weaver’s daughter; and added to his wickedness by marrying her.  And then he came to this country and married me—­a poor girl—­a poor innocent young thing—­I say,”—­“though she was past forty, you know, Harry, when she married: