not in my bed by eleven o'clock, the girl is sent out to explore with
a lantern. When I think of it, I fairly despise my amiability. It 's
rather a hard fate, to live like a saint and to pass for a sinner! I
should like for six months to lead Mrs. Hudson the life some fellows
lead their mothers!"

"Allow me to believe," said Rowland, "that you would like nothing of
the sort. If you have been a good boy, don't spoil it by pretending you
don't like it. You have been very happy, I suspect, in spite of your
virtues, and there are worse fates in the world than being loved too
well. I have not had the pleasure of seeing your mother, but I would lay
you a wager that that is the trouble. She is passionately fond of you,
and her hopes, like all intense hopes, keep trembling into fears."
Rowland, as he spoke, had an instinctive vision of how such a beautiful
young fellow must be loved by his female relatives.

Roderick frowned, and with an impatient gesture, "I do her justice," he
cried. "May she never do me less!" Then after a moment's hesitation, "I
'll tell you the perfect truth," he went on. "I have to fill a double
place. I have to be my brother as well as myself. It 's a good deal to
ask of a man, especially when he has so little talent as I for being
what he is not. When we were both young together I was the curled
darling. I had the silver mug and the biggest piece of pudding, and I
stayed in-doors to be kissed by the ladies while he made mud-pies in the
garden and was never missed, of course. Really, he was worth fifty of
me! When he was brought home from Vicksburg with a piece of shell in
his skull, my poor mother began to think she had n't loved him enough. I
remember, as she hung round my neck sobbing, before his coffin, she told
me that I must be to her everything that he would have been. I swore in
tears and in perfect good faith that I would, but naturally I have