e surprise, "or the world belies you very much."

"What ought I to know best? I see a poor little French dancer who is
come hither with her mother, and is ordered by the doctors to drink the
waters. I know that a person of my rank in life does not ordinarily
keep company with people of hers; but really, Colonel Wolfe, are you so
squeamish? Have I not heard you say that you did not value birth, and
that all honest people ought to be equal? Why should I not give this
little unprotected woman my arm? there are scarce half a dozen people
here who can speak a word of her language. I can talk a little French,
and she is welcome to it; and if Colonel Wolfe does not choose to touch
his hat to me, when I am walking with her, by George he may leave it
alone," cried Harry, flushing up.

"You don't mean to say," says Mr. Wolfe, eyeing him, "that you don't
know the woman's character?"

"Of course, sir, she is a dancer, and, I suppose, no better or worse
than her neighbours. But I mean to say that, had she been a duchess, or
your grandmother, I couldn't have respected her more."

"You don't mean to say that you did not win her at dice, from Lord
March?"

"At what?"

"At dice, from Lord March. Everybody knows the story. Not a person at
the Wells is ignorant of it. I heard it but now, in the company of that
good old Mr. Richardson, and the ladies were saying that you would be a
character for a colonial Lovelace."

"What on earth else have they said about me?" asked Harry Warrington;
and such stories as he knew the Colonel told. The most alarming accounts
of his own wickedness and profligacy were laid before him. He was a
corrupter of virtue, an habitual drunkard and gamester, a notorious
blasphemer and freethinker, a fitting companion for my Lord March,
finally, and the company into whose society he had fallen. "I tell you
these things," said Mr. Wolfe, "because it is fair that you should know
what is said of you, and because I do heartily believe, from your manner
of meeting the last charge brought against you, that you are innocent of
most of the other counts. I feel, Mr. Warrington, that I, for one, have
been doing you a wrong; and sincerely ask you to pardon me."

Of course, Harry was eager to accept his friend's apology, and they
shook hands with sincere cordiality this time. In respect of most of the
charges brought against him, Harry rebutted them easily enough: as for
the play, he owned to it. He thought that a gentlem