when I was a boy. He said my course of life was sinful; and I rather
fired up at that. Idle and useless it may be, but sinful it is not:
and I said so. He explained that he meant that, and persisted in his
assertion--that an idle, aimless, profitless life was a sinful one. Do
you know the rest?"

"No," she faltered.

"He said he would give me to the end of the year. And if I were then
still pursuing my present frivolous course of life, doing no good to
myself or to anyone else, he should cancel the engagement. My darling,
I see how this pains you."

She was suppressing her tears with difficulty. "Papa will be sure to keep
his word, Percival. He is so resolute when he thinks he is right."

"The worst is, it's true. I do fall into all sorts of scrapes, and I have
got out of money, and I do idle my time away," acknowledged the young man
in his candour. "And all the while, Anne, I am thinking and hoping to do
right. If ever I get set on my legs again, _won't_ I keep on them!"

"But how many times have you said so before!" she whispered.

"Half the follies for which I am now paying were committed when I was but
a boy," he said. "One of the men now visiting here, Dawkes, persuaded me
to put my name to a bill for him for fifteen hundred pounds, and I had to
pay it. It hampered me for years; and in the end I know I must have paid
it twice over. I might have pleaded that I was under age when he got my
signature, but it would have been scarcely honourable to do so."