society of youths of his own age, the age of wild spirits and
unreflecting imitation, unless he cling to the safeguard which is found
in hard reading, less by the book-knowledge it bestows than by the
serious and preoccupied mind which it abstracts from the coarser
temptations."

But Lionel, younger in character than in years, was too boyish as yet to
be safely consigned to those trials of tact and temper which await the
neophyte who enters on life through the doors of a mess-room. His pride
was too morbid, too much on the alert for offence; his frankness too
crude, his spirit too untamed by the insensible discipline of social
commerce.

Quoth the observant man of the world: "Place his honour in his own
keeping, and he will carry it about with him on full cock, to blow off
a friend's head or his own before the end of the first month. Huffy!
decidedly huffy! and of all causes that disturb regiments, and induce
courts-martial, the commonest cause is a huffy lad! Pity! for that
youngster has in him the right metal,--spirit and talent that should make
him a first-rate soldier. It would be time well spent that should join
professional studies with that degree of polite culture which gives
dignity and cures hulness. I must get him out of London, out of England;
cut him off from his mother's apron-strings, and the particular friends
of his poor father who prowl unannounced into the widow's drawing-room.
He shall go to Paris; no better place to learn military theories, and be
civilized out of huffy dispositions. No doubt my old friend, the
chevalier, who has the art strategic at his fingerends, might be induced
to take him en pension, direct his studies, and keep him out of harm's
way. I can secure to him the entree into the circles of the rigid old
Faubourg St. Germain, where manners are best bred, and household ties