She was the darling and torment of father and mother.  She intrigued with each secretly; and bestowed her fondness and withdrew it, plied them with tears, smiles, kisses, cajolements;—­when the mother was angry, as happened often, flew to the father, and sheltering behind him, pursued her victim; when both were displeased, transferred her caresses to the domestics, or watched until she could win back her parents’ good graces, either by surprising them into laughter and good-humor, or appeasing them by submission and artful humility.  She was saevo laeta negotio, like that fickle goddess Horace describes, and of whose “malicious joy” a great poet of our own has written so nobly—­who, famous and heroic as he was, was not strong enough to resist the torture of women.

It was but three years before that the child, then but ten years old, had nearly managed to make a quarrel between Harry Esmond and his comrade, good-natured, phlegmatic Thomas Tusher, who never of his own seeking quarrelled with anybody:  by quoting to the latter some silly joke which Harry had made regarding him—­(it was the merest idlest jest, though it near drove two old friends to blows, and I think such a battle would have pleased her)—­and from that day Tom kept at a distance from her; and she respected him, and coaxed him sedulously whenever they met.  But Harry was much more easily appeased, because he was fonder of the child:  and when she made mischief, used cutting speeches, or caused her friends pain, she excused herself for her fault, not by admitting and deploring it, but by pleading not guilty, and asserting innocence so constantly, and with such seeming artlessness, that it was impossible to question her plea.  In her childhood, they were but mischiefs then which she did; but her power became more fatal as she grew older—­as a kitten first plays with a ball, and then pounces on a bird and kills it.  ’Tis not to be imagined that Harry Esmond had all this experience at this early stage of his life, whereof he is now writing the history—­many things here noted were but known to him in later days.  Almost everything Beatrix did or undid seemed good, or at least pardonable, to him then, and years afterwards.

It happened, then, that Harry Esmond came home to Castlewood for his last vacation, with good hopes of a fellowship at his college, and a contented resolve to advance his fortune that way.  ’Twas in the first year of the present century, Mr. Esmond (as far as he knew the period of his birth) being then twenty-two years old.  He found his quondam pupil shot up into this beauty of which we have spoken, and promising yet more:  her brother, my lord’s son, a handsome high-spirited brave lad, generous and frank, and kind to everybody, save perhaps his sister, with whom Frank was at war (and not from his but her fault)—­adoring his mother, whose joy he was:  and taking her side in the unhappy matrimonial differences which were now permanent, while of course Mistress Beatrix ranged with her father.