Boys and Girls From Thackeray | Page 2

queer
figure, his sallow face, and long black hair. The lady blushed and
seemed to deprecate his ridicule by a look of appeal to her husband, for
it was my Lord Viscount who now arrived, and whom the lad knew,
having once before seen him in the late lord's lifetime.
"So this is the little priest!" says my lord, who knew for what calling
the lad was intended, and adding: "Welcome, kinsman."
"He is saying his prayers to mamma," says the little girl, and my lord
burst out into another great laugh at this, and kinsman Harry looked
very silly. He invented a half-dozen of speeches in reply, but 'twas
months afterwards when he thought of this adventure; as it was, he had
never a word in answer.

"Le pauvre enfant, il n'a que nous," says the lady, looking to her lord;
and the boy, who understood her, though doubtless she thought
otherwise, thanked her with all his heart for her kind speech.
"And he shan't want for friends here," says my lord in a kind voice.
"Shall he, little Trix?"
The little girl, whose name was Beatrix, and whom her papa called by
this diminutive, looked at Henry Esmond solemnly with a pair of large
eyes, and then a smile shone over her face, which was as beautiful as
that of a cherub, and she came up and put out a little hand to him. A
keen and delightful pang of gratitude, happiness, affection filled the
orphan child's heart as he received these tokens of friendliness and
kindness. But an hour since, he had felt quite alone in the world; when
he heard the great peal of bells from Castlewood church ringing to
welcome the arrival of the new lord and lady it had rung only terror and
anxiety to him, for he knew not how the new owner would deal with
him; and those to whom he formerly looked for protection were
forgotten or dead. Pride and doubt, too, had kept him within doors,
when the Vicar and the people of the village, and the servants of the
house, had gone out to welcome my Lord Castlewood--for Henry
Esmond was no servant, though a dependent; no relative, though he
bore the name and inherited the blood of the house; and in the midst of
the noise and acclamations attending the arrival of the new lord, for
whom a feast was got ready, and guns were fired, and tenants and
domestics huzzahed when his carriage rolled into the court-yard of the
Hall, no one took any notice of young Henry Esmond, who sat alone in
the book-room until his new friends found him.
When my lord and lady were going away from the book-room, the little
girl, still holding him by the hand, bade him come too.
"Thou wilt always forsake an old friend for a new one, Trix," says her
father good-naturedly, and went into the gallery, giving an arm to his
lady. They passed thence through the music-gallery, long since
dismantled, and Queen Elizabeth's rooms, in the clock-tower, and out
into the terrace, where was a fine prospect of sunset and the great
darkling woods with a cloud of rooks returning, and the plain and river

with Castlewood village beyond, and purple hills beautiful to look at;
and the little heir of Castlewood, a child of two years old, was already
here on the terrace in his nurse's arms, from whom he ran across the
grass instantly he perceived his mother, and came to her.
"If thou canst not be happy here," says my lord, looking round at the
scene, "thou art hard to please, Rachel."
"I am happy where you are," she said, lovingly; and then my lord began
to describe what was before them to his wife, and what indeed little
Harry knew better than he--viz., the history of the house: how by
yonder gate the page ran away with the heiress of Castlewood, by
which the estate came into the present family; how the Roundheads
attacked the clock-tower, which my lord's father was slain in defending.
"I was but two years old then," says he, "but take forty-six from ninety,
and how old shall I be, kinsman Harry?"
"Thirty," says his wife, with a laugh.
"A great deal too old for you, Rachel," answers my lord, looking fondly
down at her. Indeed she seemed to be a girl, and was at that time scarce
twenty years old.
"You know, Frank, I will do anything to please you," says she, "and I
promise you I will grow older every day."
"You mustn't call papa Frank; you must call him 'my lord,' now," says
Miss Beatrix, with a toss of her little head; at which the mother smiled,
and the good-natured father laughed, and the little trotting boy