the wisest, the bravest, and the greatest of men.  My Lady Esmond (for her part) said she could never pardon the King, first, for ousting his father-in-law from his throne, and secondly, for not being constant to his wife, the Princess Mary.  Indeed, I think if Nero were to rise again, and be king of England, and a good family man, the ladies would pardon him.  My lord laughed at his wife’s objections—­the standard of virtue did not fit him much.

The last conference which Mr. Holt had with his lordship took place when Harry was come home for his first vacation from college (Harry saw his old tutor but for a half-hour, and exchanged no private words with him), and their talk, whatever it might be, left my Lord Viscount very much disturbed in mind—­so much so, that his wife, and his young kinsman, Henry Esmond, could not but observe his disquiet.  After Holt was gone, my lord rebuffed Esmond, and again treated him with the greatest deference; he shunned his wife’s questions and company, and looked at his children with such a face of gloom and anxiety, muttering, “Poor children—­poor children!” in a way that could not but fill those whose life it was to watch him and obey him with great alarm.  For which gloom, each person interested in the Lord Castlewood, framed in his or her own mind an interpretation.

My lady, with a laugh of cruel bitterness said, “I suppose the person at Hexton has been ill, or has scolded him” (for my lord’s infatuation about Mrs. Marwood was known only too well).  Young Esmond feared for his money affairs, into the condition of which he had been initiated; and that the expenses, always greater than his revenue, had caused Lord Castlewood disquiet.

One of the causes why my Lord Viscount had taken young Esmond into his special favor was a trivial one, that hath not before been mentioned, though it was a very lucky accident in Henry Esmond’s life.  A very few months after my lord’s coming to Castlewood, in the winter time—­the little boy, being a child in a petticoat, trotting about—­it happened that little Frank was with his father after dinner, who fell asleep over his wine, heedless of the child, who crawled to the fire; and, as good fortune would have it, Esmond was sent by his mistress for the boy just as the poor little screaming urchin’s coat was set on fire by a log; when Esmond, rushing forward, tore the dress off the infant, so that his own hands were burned more than the child’s, who was frightened rather than hurt by this accident.  But certainly ’twas providential that a resolute person should have come in at that instant, or the child had been burned to death probably, my lord sleeping very heavily after drinking, and not waking so cool as a man should who had a danger to face.

Ever after this the father, loud in his expressions of remorse and humility for being a tipsy good-for-nothing, and of admiration for Harry Esmond, whom his lordship would style a hero for doing a very trifling service, had the tenderest regard for his son’s preserver, and Harry became quite as one of the family.  His burns were tended with the greatest care by his kind mistress, who said that heaven had sent him to be the guardian of her children, and that she would love him all her life.