and was of a very pleasant, sarcastical turn. He was not in the least
sorry when they went away.

"My love, I shall not be sorry to go myself," he said to his daughter,
"and you, though the most affectionate of daughters, will console
yourself after a while. Why should I, who am so old, be romantic? You
may, who are still a young creature." This he said, not meaning all he
said, for the lady whom he addressed was a matter-of-fact little person,
with very little romance in her nature.

After fifteen years' residence upon his great Virginian estate, affairs
prospered so well with the worthy proprietor, that he acquiesced in his
daughter's plans for the building of a mansion much grander and more
durable than the plain wooden edifice in which he had been content to
live, so that his heirs might have a habitation worthy of their noble
name. Several of Madam Warrington's neighbours had built handsome houses
for themselves; perhaps it was her ambition to take rank in the country,
which inspired this desire for improved quarters. Colonel Esmond, of
Castlewood, neither cared for quarters nor for quarterings. But his
daughter had a very high opinion of the merit and antiquity of her
lineage; and her sire, growing exquisitely calm and good-natured in his
serene, declining years, humoured his child's peculiarities in an easy,
bantering way,--nay, helped her with his antiquarian learning, which was
not inconsiderable, and with his skill in the art of painting, of which
he was a proficient. A knowledge of heraldry, a hundred years ago, formed
part of the education of most noble ladies and gentlemen: during her
visit to Europe, Miss Esmond had eagerly studied the family history and
pedigrees, and returned thence to Virginia with a store of documents
relative to her family on which she relied with implicit gravity and
credence, and with the most edifying volumes then published in France and