When my lady heard of the fate which had befallen poor Nancy, she said nothing so long as Tusher was by, but when he was gone, she took Harry Esmond’s hand and said—­

“Harry, I beg your pardon for those cruel words I used on the night you were taken ill.  I am shocked at the fate of the poor creature, and am sure that nothing had happened of that with which, in my anger, I charged you.  And the very first day we go out, you must take me to the blacksmith, and we must see if there is anything I can do to console the poor old man.  Poor man! to lose both his children!  What should I do without mine?”

And this was, indeed, the very first walk which my lady took, leaning on Esmond’s arm, after her illness.  But her visit brought no consolation to the old father; and he showed no softness, or desire to speak.  “The Lord gave and took away,” he said; and he knew what His servant’s duty was.  He wanted for nothing—­less now than ever before, as there were fewer mouths to feed.  He wished her ladyship and Master Esmond good morning—­he had grown tall in his illness, and was but very little marked; and with this, and a surly bow, he went in from the smithy to the house, leaving my lady, somewhat silenced and shamefaced, at the door.  He had a handsome stone put up for his two children, which may be seen in Castlewood churchyard to this very day; and before a year was out his own name was upon the stone.  In the presence of Death, that sovereign ruler, a woman’s coquetry is seared; and her jealousy will hardly pass the boundaries of that grim kingdom.  ’Tis entirely of the earth, that passion, and expires in the cold blue air, beyond our sphere.

At length, when the danger was quite over, it was announced that my lord and his daughter would return.  Esmond well remembered the day.  The lady his mistress was in a flurry of fear:  before my lord came, she went into her room, and returned from it with reddened cheeks.  Her fate was about to be decided.  Her beauty was gone—­was her reign, too, over?  A minute would say.  My lord came riding over the bridge—­he could be seen from the great window, clad in scarlet, and mounted on his gray hackney—­his little daughter ambled by him in a bright riding-dress of blue, on a shining chestnut horse.  My lady leaned against the great mantel-piece, looking on, with one hand on her heart—­she seemed only the more pale for those red marks on either cheek.  She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and withdrew it, laughing hysterically—­the cloth was quite red with the rouge when she took it away.  She ran to her room again, and came back with pale cheeks and red eyes—­her son in her hand—­just as my lord entered, accompanied by young Esmond, who had gone out to meet his protector, and to hold his stirrup as he descended from horseback.

“What, Harry, boy!” my lord said, good-naturedly, “you look as gaunt as a greyhound.  The small-pox hasn’t improved your beauty, and your side of the house hadn’t never too much of it—­ho, ho!”