and to muse, write
bad poetry perhaps, and think the world withheld from him a thousand
times more delightful than it is. This very dread of temptation
will provoke his curiosity, irritate his fancy, make him imagine the
temptation must be a very delightful thing. For the first time in my
life, ma'am, I have caught him sighing over fashionable novels, and
subscribing to the Southampton Circulating Library. Take my word for it,
it is time that Percival should begin life, and swim without corks."

Lady Mary had a profound confidence in Greville's judgment and affection
for Percival, and, like a sensible woman, she was aware of her own
weakness. She remained silent for a few moments, and then said, with an
effort,--

"You know how hateful London is to me now,--how unfit I am to return to
the hollow forms of its society; still, if you think it right, I will
take a house for the season, and Percival can still be under our eye."

"No, ma'am,--pardon me,--that will be the surest way to make him either
discontented or hypocritical. A young man of his prospects and temper
can hardly be expected to chime in with all our sober, old-fashioned
habits. You will impose on him--if he is to conform to our hours and
notions and quiet set--a thousand irksome restraints; and what will
be the consequence? In a year he will be of age, and can throw us
off altogether, if he pleases. I know the boy; don't seem to distrust
him,--he may be trusted. You place the true restraint on temptation when
you say to him: 'We confide to you our dearest treasure,--your honour,
your morals, your conscience, yourself!'"

"But at least you will go with him, if it must be so," said Lady Mary,
after a few timid arguments, from which, one by one, she was driven.

"I! What for? To be a jest of the young puppies he must know; to make
him ashamed of himself and me,--himself as a milksop, and me as a dry
nurse?"

"But this was not so abroad."

"Abroad, ma'am, I gave him full swing I promise you; and when we went
abroad he was two years younger."

"But he is a mere child still."

"Child, Lady Mary! At his age I had gone through two sieges. There
are younger faces than his at a mess-room. Come, come! I know what you
fear,--he may commit some follies; very likely. He may be taken in,
and lose some money,--he can afford it, and he will get experience in
return. Vices he has none. I have seen him,--ay, with the vicious. Send
him out against the world like a sai