it, Harry Esmond—­you see how my lady takes on about Frank’s megrim.  She used to be sorry about me, my boy (pass the tankard, Harry), and to be frightened if I had a headache once.  She don’t care about my head now.  They’re like that—­women are—­all the same, Harry, all jilts in their hearts.  Stick to college—­stick to punch and buttery ale:  and never see a woman that’s handsomer than an old cinder-faced bed-maker.  That’s my counsel.”

It was my lord’s custom to fling out many jokes of this nature, in presence of his wife and children, at meals—­clumsy sarcasms which my lady turned many a time, or which, sometimes, she affected not to hear, or which now and again would hit their mark and make the poor victim wince (as you could see by her flushing face and eyes filling with tears), or which again worked her up to anger and retort, when, in answer to one of these heavy bolts, she would flash back with a quivering reply.  The pair were not happy; nor indeed was it happy to be with them.  Alas that youthful love and truth should end in bitterness and bankruptcy!  To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder; but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all.  Harry Esmond became the confidant of one and the other—­that is, my lord told the lad all his griefs and wrongs (which were indeed of Lord Castlewood’s own making), and Harry divined my lady’s; his affection leading him easily to penetrate the hypocrisy under which Lady Castlewood generally chose to go disguised, and see her heart aching whilst her face wore a smile.  ’Tis a hard task for women in life, that mask which the world bids them wear.  But there is no greater crime than for a woman who is ill used and unhappy to show that she is so.  The world is quite relentless about bidding her to keep a cheerful face; and our women, like the Malabar wives, are forced to go smiling and painted to sacrifice themselves with their husbands; their relations being the most eager to push them on to their duty, and, under their shouts and applauses, to smother and hush their cries of pain.

So, into the sad secret of his patron’s household, Harry Esmond became initiated, he scarce knew how.  It had passed under his eyes two years before, when he could not understand it; but reading, and thought, and experience of men, had oldened him; and one of the deepest sorrows of a life which had never, in truth, been very happy, came upon him now, when he was compelled to understand and pity a grief which he stood quite powerless to relieve.

It hath been said my lord would never take the oath of allegiance, nor his seat as a peer of the kingdom of Ireland, where, indeed, he had but a nominal estate; and refused an English peerage which King William’s government offered him as a bribe to secure his loyalty.