ife's fond
queries. Mrs. Lambert thought a great misfortune had happened; that
her husband had been ruined; that he had been ordered on a dangerous
service; that one of the boys was ill, disgraced, dead; who can resist
an anxious woman, or escape the cross-examination of the conjugal
pillow? Lambert was obliged to tell a part of what he knew about Harry
Warrington. The wife was as much grieved and amazed as her husband had
been. From papa's and mamma's bedroom the grief, after being stifled for
a while under the bed-pillows there, came downstairs. Theo and Hester
took the complaint after their parents, and had it very bad. O kind,
little, wounded hearts! At first Hester turned red, flew into a great
passion, clenched her little fists, and vowed she would not believe a
word of the wicked stories; but she ended by believing them. Scandal
almost always does master people; especially good and innocent people.
Oh, the serpent they had nursed by their fire! Oh, the wretched,
wretched boy! To think of his walking about with that horrible painted
Frenchwoman, and giving her diamond necklaces, and parading his shame
before all the society at the Wells! The three ladies having cried over
the story, and the father being deeply moved by it, took the parson
into their confidence. In vain he preached at church next Sunday his
favourite sermon about scandal, and inveighed against our propensity to
think evil. We repent we promise to do so no more; but when the next
bad story comes about our neighbour we believe it. So did those kind,
wretched Oakhurst folks believe what they heard about poor Harry
Warrington.

Harry Warrington meanwhile was a great deal too well pleased with
himself to know how ill his friends were thinking of him, and was
pursuing a very idle and pleasant, if unprofitable, life, without having
the least notion of the hubbub he was creating, and the dreadful repute
in which he was held by many good men. Coming out from a match at tennis
with Mr. Batts, and pleased with his play and all the world, Harry
overtook Colonel Wolfe, who had been on one of his visits to the lady
of his heart. Harry held out his hand, which the Colonel took, but
the latter's salutation was so cold, that the young man could not help
remarking it, and especially noting how Mr. Wolfe, in return for a fine
bow from Mr. Batts's hat, scarcely touched his own with his forefinger.
The tennis Captain walked away looking somewhat disconcerted, Harry
re