All the while of the prayers, Beatrix knelt a little way before Harry Esmond. The red stockings were changed for a pair of grey, and black shoes, in which her feet looked to the full as pretty. All the roses of spring could not vie with the brightness of her complexion; Esmond thought he had never seen anything like the sunny lustre of her eyes. My lady viscountess looked fatigued, as if with watching, and her face was pale. Miss Beatrix remarked these signs of indisposition in her mother, and deplored them. “I am an old woman,” says my lady, with a kind smile; “I cannot hope to look as young as you do, my dear.” “She’ll never look as good as you do if she lives till she’s a hundred,” says my lord, taking his mother by the waist, and kissing her hand. “Do I look very wicked, cousin?” says Beatrix, turning full round on Esmond, with her pretty face so close under his chin, that the soft perfumed hair touched it. She laid her finger-tips on his sleeve as she spoke; and he put his other hand over hers. “I’m like your looking-glass,” says he, “and that can’t flatter you.” “He means that you are always looking at him, my dear,” says her mother, archly. Beatrix ran away from Esmond at this, and flew to her mamma, whom she kissed, stopping my lady’s mouth with her pretty hand. “And Harry is very good to look at,” says my lady, with her fond eyes regarding the young man. “If ’tis good to see a happy face,” says he, “you see that.” My lady said “Amen”, with a sigh; and Harry thought the memory of her dead lord rose up and rebuked her back again into sadness; for her face lost the smile, and resumed its look of melancholy. “Why, Harry, how fine we look in our scarlet and silver, and our black periwig,” cries my lord. “Mother, I am tired of my own hair. When shall I have a peruke? Where did you get your steenkirk, Harry?” “It’s some of my lady dowager’s lace,” says Harry; “she gave me this and a number of other fine things.” “My lady dowager isn’t such a bad woman,” my lord continued. “She’s not so—so red as she’s painted,” says Miss Beatrix. Her brother broke into a laugh. “I’ll tell her you said so; by the lord, Trix, I will,” he cries out. “She’ll know that you hadn’t the wit to say it, my lord,” says Miss Beatrix. “We won’t quarrel the first day Harry’s here, will we, mother?” said the young lord. “We’ll see if we can get on to the new year without a fight. Have some of this Christmas pie? and here comes the tankard; no, it’s Pincot with the tea.” “Will the captain choose a dish?” asks Mistress Beatrix. “I say, Harry,” my lord goes on, “I’ll show thee my horses after breakfast; and we’ll go a bird-netting to-night, and on Monday there’s a cock-match at Winchester—do you love cock-fighting, Harry?—between the gentlemen of Sussex and the gentlemen of Hampshire, at ten pound the battle, and fifty pound the odd battle to show one-and-twenty cocks.” “And what will you do, Beatrix, to amuse our kinsman?” asks my lady.