My lord burst out, with a laugh and an oath--“You young slyboots, you've been at Nancy Sievewright. D--- the young hypocrite, who'd have thought it in him? I say, Tusher, he's been after--” “Enough, my lord,” said my lady, “don't insult me with this talk.” “Upon my word,” said poor Harry, ready to cry with shame and mortification, “the honor of that young person is perfectly unstained for me.” “Oh, of course, of course,” says my lord, more and more laughing and tipsy. “Upon his HONOR, Doctor--Nancy Sieve-- . . .” “Take Mistress Beatrix to bed,” my lady cried at this moment to Mrs. Tucker her woman, who came in with her ladyship's tea. “Put her into my room--no, into yours,” she added quickly. “Go, my child: go, I say: not a word!” And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority from one who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the room with a scared countenance, and waited even to burst out a-crying until she got to the door with Mrs. Tucker. For once her mother took little heed of her sobbing, and continued to speak eagerly--“My lord,” she said, “this young man--your dependant--told me just now in French--he was ashamed to speak in his own language--that he had been at the ale-house all day, where he has had that little wretch who is now ill of the small-pox on his knee. And he comes home reeking from that place--yes, reeking from it--and takes my boy into his lap without shame, and sits down by me, yes, by ME. He may have killed Frank for what I know--killed our child. Why was he brought in to disgrace our house? Why is he here? Let him go--let him go, I say, to-night, and pollute the place no more.” She had never once uttered a syllable of unkindness to Harry Esmond; and her cruel words smote the poor boy, so that he stood for some moments bewildered with grief and rage at the injustice of such a stab from such a hand. He turned quite white from red, which he had been. “I cannot help my birth, madam,” he said, “nor my other misfortune. And as for your boy, if--if my coming nigh to him pollutes him now, it was not so always. Good-night, my lord. Heaven bless you and yours for your goodness to me. I have tired her ladyship's kindness out, and I will go;” and, sinking down on his knee, Harry Esmond took the rough hand of his benefactor and kissed it. “He wants to go to the ale-house--let him go,” cried my lady. “I'm d--d if he shall,” said my lord. “I didn't think you could be so d--d ungrateful, Rachel.” Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with a rapid glance at Harry Esmond,--as my lord, not heeding them, and still in great good-humor, raised up his young client from his kneeling posture (for a thousand kindnesses had caused the lad to revere my lord as a father), and put his broad hand on Harry Esmond's shoulder.