“I am sorry,” she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice,—­“I repeat I am sorry that I showed myself so ungrateful for the safety of my son.  It was not at all my wish that you should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere.  But you must perceive, Mr. Esmond, that at your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that you can continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have been in this family.  You have wished to go to the University, and I think ’tis quite as well that you should be sent thither.  I did not press this matter, thinking you a child, as you are, indeed, in years—­quite a child; and I should never have thought of treating you otherwise until—­until these circumstances came to light.  And I shall beg my lord to despatch you as quick as possible:  and will go on with Frank’s learning as well as I can, (I owe my father thanks for a little grounding, and you, I’m sure, for much that you have taught me,)—­and—­and I wish you a good-night, Mr. Esmond.”

And with this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments.  Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her.  Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained for ever fixed upon his memory.  He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair.  He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading until afterwards he remembered the appearance of the letters of the book (it was in Montaigne’s Essays), and the events of the day passed before him—­that is, of the last hour of the day; for as for the morning, and the poor milkmaid yonder, he never so much as once thought.  And he could not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache, and quite unrefreshed.

He had brought the contagion with him from the “Three Castles” sure enough, and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the hall no more than it did the cottage.

CHAPTER IX.

I have the small-pox, and prepare to leave Castlewood.

When Harry Esmond passed through the crisis of that malady, and returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also suffered and rallied after the disease, and the lady his mother was down with it, with a couple more of the household.  “It was a Providence, for which we all ought to be thankful,” Doctor Tusher said, “that my lady and her son were spared, while Death carried off the poor domestics of the house;” and rebuked Harry for asking, in his simple way, For which we ought to be thankful—­that the servants were killed, or the gentlefolks were saved?  Nor could young Esmond agree in the Doctor’s vehement protestations