"I was just thinkin' of that this minute; wasn't that strange now?"

"We 'll have to go, for they 're going to break up house here, and go off to Rome for the winter."

"How will we settle with Pan?" said Joe, thoughtfully.

"A bill, I suppose."

Joe shook his head doubtingly. "I 'm afraid not."

"Go I will, and go I must," said O'Shea, resolutely. "I 'm not going to lose the best chance I ever had in life for the sake of a beggarly innkeeper."

"Why would you? Sure, no one would ask you! For, after all, 't is only drivin' away, if we 're put to it I don't think he 'd overtake us."

"Not if we went the same pace you did this morning, Joe," said O'Shea, laughing; and Joe joined pleasantly in the laugh, and the event ceased to be a grievance from that instant.

CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. MORRIS AS COUNSELLOR

The breakfast at the Villa' Caprini always seemed to recall more of English daily life and habit than any other event of the day. It was not only in the luxuriously spread table, and the sideboard arrayed with that picturesque profusion so redolent of home, but there was that gay and hearty familiarity so eminently the temper of the hour, and that pleasant interchange of news and gossip, as each tore the envelope of his letter, or caught some amusing paragraph in his paper.

Mrs. Penthony Morris had a very wide correspondence, and usually contributed little scraps of intelligence from various parts of the Continent. They were generally the doings and sayings of that cognate world whose names require no introduction, and even those to whom they are unfamiliar would rather hear in silence than own to the ignorance.

The derelicts of fashion are the staple of small-talk; they are suggestive of all the little social smartness one hears, and of that very Brummagem morality which assumes to judge them. In these Mrs.

Morris revelled. No paragraph of the "Morning Post" was too mysteriously worded for her powers of interpretation; no asterisks could veil a name from her piercing gaze. Besides, she had fashioned a sort of algebraic code of life which wonderfully assisted her divination, and being given an unhappy marriage, she could foretell the separation, or, with the data of a certain old gentleman's visits to St. John's Wood, could predict his will with an accuracy that seemed marvellous. As she sat, surrounded with letters and notes of all sizes, she varied the tone of her intelligence so artfully as to canvass the suffrage of every listener. Now it was some piece of court gossip, some "scandal of Queen Elizabeth," now a curious political intrigue, and now, again, some dashing exploit of a young soldier in India. But whether it told of good or evil fortune, of some deeply interesting event or some passing triviality, her power of narrating it was considerable, as, with a tact all her own, she selected some one especial individual as chief listener. After a number of short notices of London, Rome, and Paris, she tossed over several letters carelessly, saying,--

"I believe I have given you the cream of my correspondence. Stay, here is something about your old sloop the 'Mosquito,' Lord Agincourt; would you like to hear of how she attacked the forts at the mouth of the--oh, how shall I attack it?--the Bhageebhahoo? This is a midshipman's letter, written the same evening of the action."

Though the question was addressed very pointedly, the boy never heard it, but sat deeply engaged in deciphering a very jagged handwriting in a letter before him. It was one of those scratchy, unfinished specimens of penmanship which are amongst the luxuries persons of condition occasionally indulge in. Seeing his preoccupation, Mrs. Morris did not repeat her question, but suffered him to pursue his researches undisturbed. He had just begun his breakfast when the letter arrived, and now he ceased to eat anything, but seemed entirely engrossed by his news. At last he arose abruptly, and left the room.

"I hope Agincourt has not got any bad tidings," said Sir William; "he seems agitated and uneasy."

"I saw his guardian's name--Sommerville--on the envelope," said Mrs.

Morris. "It is, probably, one of those pleasant epistles which wards receive quarterly to remind them that even minors have miseries."

The meal did not recover its pleasant tone after this little incident, and soon after they all scattered through the house and the grounds, Mrs. Morris setting out for her usual woodland walk, which she took each morning. A half-glance the boy had given her as he quitted the room at breakfast-time, induced her to believe that he wanted to consult her about his letter, and so, as she entered the shrubbery, she was not surprised to find Lord Agincourt there before her.

"I was just wishing it might be your footstep I heard on the gravel,"

said he, joining her. "May I keep you company?"

"To be sure, provided you don't make love to me, which I never permit in the forenoon."

"Oh, I have other thoughts in my head," said he, sighing drearily; "and you are the very one to advise me what to do. Not, indeed, that I have any choice about that, only how to do it, that's the question."

"When one has the road marked out, it's never very hard to decide on the mode of the journey," said she. "Tell me what your troubles are."

[Illustration: 202]

"Troubles you may well call them," said he, with a deeper sigh. "There, read that--if you can read it--for the old Earl does not grow more legible by being older."

"'Crews Court,'" read she, aloud. "Handsome old abbey it must be," added she, remarking on a little tinted sketch at the top of the letter.

"Yes, that's a place of mine. I was born there," said the boy, half proudly.

"It's quite princely."

"It's a fine old thing, and I 'd give it all this minute not to have had that disagreeable letter."

"'My dear Henry,'" began she, in a low, muttering voice, "'I have heard with--with'--not abomination--oh no, 'astonishment--with astonishment, not unmixed with'--it can't be straw--is it straw?--no, it is 'shame,--not unmixed with shame, that you have so far forgiven--forgotten'--oh, that's it--'what was done to yourself.'"

"No, 'what was due to yourself,'" interrupted he; "that's a favorite word of his, and so I know it."

"'To become the--the'--dear me, what can this be with the vigorous G at the beginning?--'to become'--is it really the Giant?--'to become the Giant'--"

The boy here burst into a fit of laughing, and, taking the letter from her, proceeded to read it out.

"I have spelt it all over five times," said he, "and I know it by heart.

'I have heard with astonishment, not unmixed with shame, that you have so far forgotten what was due to yourself as to become the Guest of one who for so many years was the political opponent and even personal enemy of our house. Your ignorance of family history cannot possibly be such as that you are unaware of the claims once put forward by this same Sir William Heathcote to your father's peerage, or of the disgraceful law proceedings instituted to establish his pretensions.' As if I ever heard a word of all this before! as if I knew or cared a brass button about the matter!" burst he in. "'Had your tutor'--here comes in my poor coach for _his_ turn," said Agincourt--"'had your tutor but bestowed proper attention to the instructions written by my own hand for his guidance--'We never could read them; we have been at them for hours together, and all we could make out was, 'Let him study hazard, roulette, and all other such games;' which rather surprised us, till we found out it was 'shun,' and not 'study,' and 'only frequent the fast society of each city he visits,' which was a mistake for 'first.'"

"Certainly the noble Lord has a most ambiguous calligraphy," said she, smiling; "and Mr. Layton is not so culpable as might be imagined."

"Ah!" cried the boy, laughing, "I wish you had seen Alfred's face on the day he received our first quarter's remittance, and read out: 'You may drag on me like a mouse, if you please,' which was intended to be, 'draw upon me to a like amount, if you please;' and it was three weeks before we could make that out! But let me go on--where was I? Oh, at 'guidance.' 'Recent information has, however, shown me that nothing could have been more unfortunate than our choice of this young man, his father being one of the most dangerous individuals known to the police, a man familiar with the lowest haunts of crime, a notorious swindler, and a libeller by profession. In the letter which I send off by this day's post to your tutor I have enclosed one from his father to myself.

It is not very likely that he will show it to you, as it contains the most insolent demands for an increase of salary--as some slight, though inadequate, compensation for an office unbecoming my son's rank, insulting to his abilities, and even damaging to his acquirements." I give you this in his own choice language, but there is much more in the same strain. The man, it would appear, has just come out of a lunatic asylum, to which place his intemperate habits had brought him; and I may mention that his first act of gratitude to the benevolent individual who had undertaken the whole cost of his maintenance there was to assault him in the open street, and give him a most savage beating.

Captain Hone or Holmes--a distinguished officer, as I am told--is still confined to his room from the consequences.'"

"How very dreadful!" said Mrs. Morris calmly. "Shocking treatment! for a distinguished officer too!"

"Dreadful fellow he must be," said the boy. "What a rare fright he must have given my old guardian! But the end of it all is, I 'm to leave Alfred, and go back to England at once. I wish I was going to sea again; I wish I was off thousands of miles away, and not to come home for years. To part with the kind, good fellow, that was like a brother to me, this way,--how can I do it? And do you perceive, he has n't one word to say against Alfred? It's only that he has the misfortune of this terrible father. And, after all, might not that be any one's lot? You might have a father you couldn't help being ashamed of."

"Of course," said she; "I can fancy such a case easily enough."

"I know it will nearly kill poor Alfred; he 'll not be able to bear it. He's as proud as he is clever, and he'll not endure the tone of the Earl's letter. Who knows what he 'll do? Can _you_ guess?"

"'Not in the least. I imagine that he 'll submit as patiently as he can, and look out for another situation."

"Ah, there you don't know him!" broke in the boy: "he can't endure this kind of thing. He only consented to take me because his health was breaking up from hard reading; he wanted rest and a change of climate.

At first he refused altogether, and only gave way when some of his college dons over-persuaded him."

She smiled a half-assent, but said nothing.

"Then there's another point," said he, suddenly: "I'm sure his Lordship has not been very measured in the terms of his letter to him. I can just fancy the tone of it; and I don't know how poor Alfred is to bear that."

"My dear boy, you'll learn one of these days--and the knowledge will come not the less soon from your being a Peer--that all the world is either forbearing or overbearing. You must be wolf or lamb: there's no help for it."

"Alfred never told me so," said he, sternly.

"It's more than likely that he did not know! There are no men know less of life than these college creatures; and there lies the great mistake in selecting such men for tutors for our present-day life and its accidents. Alexandre Dumas would be a safer guide than Herodotus; and Thackeray teach you much more than Socrates."