mond was softened by it (and especially touched by a letter
which the Baroness wrote--the letter which caused George to pack off
post-haste for Europe, indeed). She heartily hoped and trusted that
Madam Beatrix had found occasion to repent of her former bad ways. It
was time, indeed, at her age; and Heaven knows that she had plenty
to repent of! I have known a harmless, good old soul of eighty, still
bepommelled and stoned by irreproachable ladies of the straitest sect of
the Pharisees, for a little slip which occurred long before the present
century was born, or she herself was twenty years old. Rachel Esmond
never mentioned her eldest daughter: Madam Esmond Warrington never
mentioned her sister. No. In spite of the order for remission of the
sentence--in spite of the handwriting on the floor of the Temple--there
is a crime which some folks never will pardon, and regarding which
female virtue, especially, is inexorable.

I suppose the Virginians' agent at Bristol had told George fearful
stories of his brother's doings. Gumbo, whom he met at his aunt's door,
as soon as the lad recovered from his terror at the sudden reappearance
of the master whom he supposed dead, had leisure to stammer out a word
or two respecting his young master's whereabouts, and present pitiable
condition; and hence Mr. George's sternness of demeanour when he
presented himself to the old lady. It seemed to him a matter of course
that his brother in difficulty should be rescued by his relations. Oh,
George, how little you know about London and London ways! Whenever you
take your walks abroad how many poor you meet--if a philanthropist were
for rescuing all of them, not all the wealth of all the provinces of
America would suffice him!

But the feeling and agitation displayed by the old lady touched her
nephew's heart when, jolting through the dark streets towards the
house of his brother's captivity, George came to think of his aunt's
behaviour. "She does feel my poor Harry's misfortune," he thought to
himself, "I have been too hasty in judging her." Again and again, in the
course of his life, Mr. George had to rebuke himself with the same crime
of being too hasty. How many of us have not? And, alas, the mischief
done, there's no repentance will mend it. Quick, coachman! We are almost
as slow as you are in getting from Clarges Street to the Temple. Poor
Gumbo knows the way to the bailiff's house well enough. Again the bell
is set ringing. The first