The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne

t poor Beatrix had accepted the Duke's offer, she began to assume the majestic air of a Duchess, nay, Queen Elect, and to carry herself as one sacred and remove

d forego the fascination; in spite of her faults and her pride and wilfulness, they were forced to l

l; or rather I should say such a past is always present to a man; such a passion once felt forms a part of his whole being, and cannot be separated from it; it becomes a portion of the man of to-day, just as any great faith or conviction, the discovery of poetry, the awakening of religion, ever afterwards influence him; just as the wound I had at Blenheim, and of which I wear the scar, hath become

race the Ambassador wished to adorn his splendid mission. She must have her picture by Kneller, a duchess not being complete without a portrait, and a noble one he made, and actually sketched in, on a cushion, a coronet which she was about to wear. She vowed she would wear it at King James the Third's coronation, and never a princess in the land would have become ermine better. Esmond found the ante-chamber crowded with milliners and toyshop women, obsequious goldsmiths with jewels, salvers, and tankards; and mercers' men with hangings, and velvets, and brocades. My Lady Duchess elect was giving audience to one famous silversmith from Exeter Change, who brought with him a great chased salver, of which he w

of the warrior dead in his chamber, his servants and children weeping around him; and of this smiling creature attiring herself, as it were, for that nuptial death-bed. "'Tis a pretty piece o

r, is propriety in me. You ask a Jewish price for it, Mr.

Mr. Esmond. "Herodias! you know n

e fright from Esmond's pale countenance, and her eyes shone out like beacons of alarm:-"What is it, Henry!"

he supported her upon his heart, bidding the scared goldsmith leave them. The man w

lid and affrighted creature, "you have the greatest courage of any woman in

was very gloomy, and I angered him: but he dared not, he dared not!" As she spoke a burning blush flushed over her whole

d, wondering that rage rather

, and you haven't dared to avenge me! You, that pretend to be the champion of our h

t alive, Beatri

ck to the wall as though shot in the breast:

, that the noble Hamilton died true to you; at least that 'twas not your quarrel, or your pride, or your wicked vanity, that drove him to his fate. He died by the bloody sword which already had drank your own father's blood. O woman, O sister! to that sad

rother," she said, in a low voice, and with a simplicity more touching than tears; "all you have said is true and kind, and I will go away and ask pardon." The three others remained behind, and talked over the dreadful story. It affected Dr. Atterbury more even than us, as it seemed. The death of Mohun, her husband's murderer, was more awful to my mistress than even the Duke's unhappy end. Esmond gave at length what particulars he knew of their quarrel, and the cause of it. The two noblemen had long been at war with respect to the Lord Gerard's property, whose two daughters my Lord Duke and Mohun had married. They had met by appointment that day at the lawyer's in Lincoln's Inn Fields; had words which, though they appeared very trifling to those who heard them, were not so to men exasperated by long and previous enmity. Mohun asked my Lord Duke where he could see his Grace's friends, and within an hour had sent two of his

lly his sword with the blood of such a villain. But his spirit was so high that those who wished his death knew that his courage was like his charity, and never turned any man away; and he died by the hands of Mohun, and the other two cut-throats that were set on him. The Queen's ambassador t

n; and the two colonels had been broke but the year before for drinking perdition to the Tories. His Grace was a Whig now and a Hanoverian, and as eager for war as Prince Eugene h

by. He drove the man from under Beatrix's very window, whereof the casement had been set open. The sun was shining though 'twas November: he had seen the market-carts rolling into London, the guard relieved at the palace, the laborers trudging to their work in the gardens between Kensington and the City-the wandering merchants and hawkers filling the air with their cries. The world was going to its business again, although dukes lay dead and