Mrs. Haughton pouted, and kept down her rising temper. The Colonel began to awe her.
"By the by," continued the man of the world, "may I inquire the name of my old friend's particular friend?"
"His name? upon my word I really don't know it. Perhaps he left his card; ring the bell, Lionel."
"You don't know his name, yet you know him, ma'am, and would allow your son to see LIFE under his auspices! I beg you ten thousand pardons; but even ladies the most cautious, mothers the most watchful, are exposed to—"
"Immense temptations,—that is—to—to—"
"I understand perfectly, my dear Mrs. Haughton."
The footman appeared. "Did that gentleman leave a card?"
"No, ma'am."
"Did not you ask his name when he entered?"
"Yes, ma'am, but he said he would announce himself." When the footman had withdrawn, Mrs. Haughton exclaimed piteously, "I have been to blame, Colonel; I see it. But Lionel will tell you how I came to know the gentleman,—the gentleman who nearly ran over me, Lionel, and then spoke so kindly about your dear father."
"Oh, that is the person!--I supposed so," cried Lionel, kissing his mother, who was inclined to burst into tears. "I can explain it all now, Colonel Morley. Any one who says a kind word about my father warms my mother's heart to him at once; is it not so, Mother dear?"
"And long be it so," said Colonel Morley, with grateful earnestness; "and may such be my passport to your confidence, Mrs. Haughton. Charles was my old schoolfellow,—a little boy when I and Darrell were in the sixth form; and, pardon me, when I add, that if that gentleman were ever Charles Haughton's particular friend, he could scarcely have been a very wise one. For unless his appearance greatly belies his years he must have been little more than a boy when Charles Haughton left Lionel fatherless."
Here, in the delicacy of tact, seeing that Mrs. Haughton looked ashamed of the subject, and seemed aware of her imprudence, the Colonel rose, with a request—cheerfully granted—that Lionel might be allowed to come to breakfast with him the next morning.
