disappointed. It would be surprising to many a stately pater-familias to
learn how easily acquaintanceship, and even friendship, is contracted
with his male offspring, if they be among the pleasure-seekers of the
town. A young man of good address and exterior, with plenty of money in
his pocket, does not require introduction. The club door soon flies open
to him, but not that of the home. Richard was on tolerably intimate
terms with Chandos, and other young men of the same class--but he had
never been introduced to their sisters. It was here that Mrs. Yorke made
her mistake: she thought she understood society because she had studied
two exceptional phases of it. There is nobody more short-sighted than
the Bohemian, who imagines he is a citizen of the world; his round of
life may have no fence in the shape of convention, yet it is often, very
limited, and it is outside every other.

Mrs. Yorke judged of all men by her knowledge of her late husband and of
Carew, and of women by herself. If it had not been for the
artificialities of society, she might have been right; but they are
powerful, and she knew little about them. In some matters she was
exceedingly sagacious. She did not entertain the alarm which would have
been felt by some mothers with respect to her son's morals, probably
exposed to some danger by his mode of life; perhaps she had not their
scruples; and yet it is strange to see how light those weigh, even with
our severest matrons, when any question of "position" is in the other
scale: they will not only permit their sons to herd with _roués_,
provided they are persons of distinction, but even accept them for their
sons-in-law. Mrs. Yorke, being daughterless, had no temptation to commit
this latter crime, but she was not displeased to imagine her Richard a
man of gallantry; he would in that case be less likely to fall a victim
to undowered charms. "It is not your man-about-town who sacrifices his
future in a love-match," was her reflection. On the other hand, no one