the hollow forms of its society; still, if you think it right, I will
take a house for the season, and Percival can still be under our eye."

"No, ma'am,--pardon me,--that will be the surest way to make him either
discontented or hypocritical. A young man of his prospects and temper
can hardly be expected to chime in with all our sober, old-fashioned
habits. You will impose on him--if he is to conform to our hours and
notions and quiet set--a thousand irksome restraints; and what will be
the consequence? In a year he will be of age, and can throw us off
altogether, if he pleases. I know the boy; don't seem to distrust him,--
he may be trusted. You place the true restraint on temptation when you
say to him: 'We confide to you our dearest treasure,--your honour, your
morals, your conscience, yourself!'"

"But at least you will go with him, if it must be so," said Lady Mary,
after a few timid arguments, from which, one by one, she was driven.

"I! What for? To be a jest of the young puppies he must know; to make
him ashamed of himself and me,--himself as a milksop, and me as a dry
nurse?"

"But this was not so abroad."

"Abroad, ma'am, I gave him full swing I promise you; and when we went
abroad he was two years younger."

"But he is a mere child still."

"Child, Lady Mary! At his age I had gone through two sieges. There are
younger faces than his at a mess-room. Come, come! I know what you