How could we say he did not squint?  His eyes were fine, but there was certainly a cast in them.  She rallied him at table with wonderful wit; she spoke of him invariably as of a mere boy; she was more fond of Esmond than ever, praised him to her brother, praised him to the Prince, when his Royal Highness was pleased to sneer at the Colonel, and warmly espoused his cause:  “And if your Majesty does not give him the Garter his father had, when the Marquis of Esmond comes to your Majesty’s court, I will hang myself in my own garters, or will cry my eyes out.”  “Rather than lose those,” says the Prince, “he shall be made Archbishop and Colonel of the Guard” (it was Frank Castlewood who told me of this conversation over their supper).

     * There can be very little doubt that the Doctor mentioned
     by my dear father was the famous Dr. Arbuthnot.—­R.  E. W.

“Yes,” cries she, with one of her laughs—­I fancy I hear it now.  Thirty years afterwards I hear that delightful music.  “Yes, he shall be Archbishop of Esmond and Marquis of Canterbury.”

“And what will your ladyship be?” says the Prince; “you have but to choose your place.”

“I,” says Beatrix, “will be mother of the maids to the Queen of his Majesty King James the Third—­Vive le Roy!” and she made him a great curtsy, and drank a part of a glass of wine in his honor.

“The Prince seized hold of the glass and drank the last drop of it,” Castlewood said, “and my mother, looking very anxious, rose up and asked leave to retire.  But that Trix is my mother’s daughter, Harry,” Frank continued, “I don’t know what a horrid fear I should have of her.  I wish—­I wish this business were over.  You are older than I am, and wiser, and better, and I owe you everything, and would die for you—­before George I would; but I wish the end of this were come.”

Neither of us very likely passed a tranquil night; horrible doubts and torments racked Esmond’s soul:  ’twas a scheme of personal ambition, a daring stroke for a selfish end—­he knew it.  What cared he, in his heart, who was King?  Were not his very sympathies and secret convictions on the other side—­on the side of People, Parliament, Freedom?  And here was he, engaged for a Prince that had scarce heard the word liberty; that priests and women, tyrants by nature, both made a tool of.  The misanthrope was in no better humor after hearing that story, and his grim face more black and yellow than ever.

CHAPTER X.

We entertain A very distinguished guest at Kensington.