was showing my Lord Marquess downstairs with a
pair of wax tapers, when I found a woman in a grey coat seated at my
doorsteps: to whom, taking her for a beggar, I tendered a piece of
money, and whom my noble friends, who were rather hot with wine, began
to joke, as my door closed and I bade them all good-night.

I was rather surprised and affected to find afterwards that the hooded
woman was no other than my mother; whose pride had made her vow that she
would not enter my doors, but whose natural maternal yearnings had made
her long to see her son's face once again, and who had thus planted
herself in disguise at my gate. Indeed, I have found in my experience
that these are the only women who never deceive a man, and whose
affection remains constant through all trials. Think of the hours that
the kind soul must have passed, lonely in the street, listening to the
din and merriment within my apartments, the clinking of the glasses, the
laughing, the choruses, and the cheering.

When my affair with Lord George happened, and it became necessary to me,
for the reasons I have stated, to be out of the way; now, thought I, is
the time to make my peace with my good mother: she will never refuse me
an asylum now that I seem in distress. So sending to her a notice that I
was coming, that I had had a duel which had brought me into trouble, and
required I should go into hiding, I followed my messenger half-an-hour
afterwards: and, I warrant me, there was no want of a good reception,
for presently, being introduced into an empty room by the barefooted
maid who waited upon Mrs. Barry, the door was opened, and the poor
mother flung herself into my arms with a scream, and with transports
of joy which I shall not attempt to describe--they are but to be
comprehended by women who have held in their arms an only child after a
twelve years' absence from him.

The Reverend Mr. Jowls, my mother's director, was the only person to
whom the door of her habitation was opened during my sojourn; and he
would take no denial. He mixed for himself a glass of rum-punch, which
he seemed in the habit of drinking at my good mother's charge, groaned
aloud, and forthwith began reading me a lecture upon the sinfulness of
my past courses, and especially of the last horrible action I had been
committing.

'Sinful!' said my mother, bristling up when her son was attacked;
'sure we're all sinners; and it's you, Mr. Jowls, who have given me the
inexpressible b