tly. Just go on with your knitting, and don't put yourself into a
state."

The widow, recovering herself a little, resumed her work, and Frank, who
had listened with an amused smile up to this point--supposing that his
brother was jesting--elongated his face and opened his eyes wider and
wider as he listened.

"You must know," resumed Willie, "that I received a note from Mr
Auberly last night, asking me to call on him some time this afternoon.
So I went, and found him seated in his library. Poor man, he has a
different look now from what he had when I went last to see him. You
know I have hardly ever seen him since that day when I bamboozled him so
about `another boy' that he expected to call. But his spirit is not
much improved, I fear. `Sit down, Mr Willders,' he said. `I asked you
to call in reference to a matter which I think it well that the parties
concerned should understand thoroughly. Your brother Frank, I am told,
has had the presumption to pay his addresses to Miss Ward, the young
lady who lives with my relative, Miss Tippet.' `Yes, Mr Auberly,' I
replied, `and Miss Ward has had the presumption to accept him--'"

"It was wrong of you to answer so," interrupted Mrs Willders, shaking
her head.

"Wrong, mother! how could I help it? Was I going to sit there and hear
him talk of Frank's presumption as if he were a chimney-sweep?"

"Mr Auberly thinks Miss Ward above him in station, and so deems his
aspiring to her hand presumption," replied the widow gently. "Besides,
you should have remembered the respect due to age."

"Well, but, mother," said Willie, defending himself, "it was very
impudent of him, and I did speak very respectfully to him in tone if not
in words. The fact is I felt nettled, for, after all, what is Miss
Ward? The society she mingles in is Miss Tippet's society, and that's
not much to boast of; and her father, I believe, was a confectioner--no
doubt a rich one, that kept his carriage before he failed, and left his
daughter almost a beggar. But riches don't make a gentleman or a lady
either, mother; I'm sure you've often told me that, and explained that
education, and good training, and good feelings, and polite manners, and
consideration for others, were the true foundations of gentility. If
that be so, mother, there are many gentlemen born who are not gentlemen
bred, and many lowly born who--"

"Come, lad, don't bamboozle your mother with sophistries," interrupted
Frank, "bu