Darrell bowed. Lionel began to shudder.

"And if I might presume to think it would amuse you, Mr. Darrell, oh, I
should be so happy to see you!--so happy!"

"Would you?" said Darrell, briefly. "Then I should be a churl if I did
not come. Lionel will escort me. Of course you expect him too?"

"Yes, indeed. Though he has so many fine places to go to-and it can't be
exactly what he is used to-yet he is such a dear good boy that he gives
up all to gratify his mother."

Lionel, in agonies, turned an unfilial back, and looked steadily out of
the window; but Darrell, far too august to take offence where none was
meant, only smiled at the implied reference to Lionel's superior demand
in the fashionable world, and replied, without even a touch of his
accustomed irony: "And to gratify his mother is a pleasure I thank you
for inviting me to share with him."

More and more at her ease, and charmed with having obeyed her hospitable
impulse, Mrs. Haughton, following Darrell to the landing-place, added:

"And if you like to play a quiet rubber--"

"I never touch cards--I abhor the very name of them, ma'am," interrupted
Darrell, somewhat less gracious in his tones.

He mounted his horse; and Lionel, breaking from Mrs. Haughton, who was
assuring him that Mr. Darrell was not at all what she expected, but