"And therefore it will not do to commence with the exception; so
good-bye, till we meet again on Wednesday."

Three nights a-week there was something going on at the institution
sufficiently attractive to draw George and Hardy there. One evening a
lecture, another the discussion class, and the third an elocution class,
or more frequently that was resigned in favour of chess. From meeting
the same young men, night after night, a great number of new
acquaintanceships were formed, and George would never have spent an
evening at home, had he accepted the invitations which were frequently
being given him; but he had made a compact with himself, that he would
never be out more than three evenings a week, and would devote the
remainder to the society of his mother. A certain little voice did
sometimes say to him, "Is it quite right and kind of you, George, to
leave your mother so often? Do you not think it must be rather lonely
for her, sometimes, without you?" And George would answer to the voice,
"Mother would never wish to stand between me and my improvement.
Besides, she has many friends who visit her, and with whom she visits;
and few young men of my age give their mothers more than three evenings
of their society a week."

One evening, as George and Hardy were entering the institution, Harry
Ashton came up to them, and said,--

"I have just had some tickets sent me for the Adelphi. There is nothing
going on here worth staying for, so I shall go. Dixon will make one, and
you and Hardy must make up the quartette."

"Dixon going?" asked George; "why, I thought he was such a sedate
fellow, and never went to anything of the sort!"