sh to keep your
nephew unspoiled.'

'I wish there were any one else to spoil him!'

'For his sake, then, come and make Ormersfield cheerful. It will be
far better for him.'

'And for you, to see more of Jem,' she added. 'If he were yours, what
would you say to such hours?'

The last words were aimed at a young man who came briskly into the
room, and as he kissed her, and shook hands with the Earl, answered in
a quick, bright tone, 'Shocking, aye. All owing to sitting up till
one!'

'Reading?' said the Earl.

'Reading,' he answered, with a sort of laughing satisfaction in dashing
aside the approval expressed in the query, 'but not quite as you
suppose. See here,' as he held up maliciously a railway novel.

'I am afraid I know where it came from,' said Lord Ormersfield.

'Exactly so,' said James. 'It was Fitzjocelyn's desertion of it that
excited my curiosity.'

'Indeed. I should have thought his desertions far too common to excite
any curiosity.'

'By no means. He always has a reason.'

'A plausible one.'

'More than plausible,' cried James, excitement sparkling in his vivid
black eyes. 'It happens that this is the very book that you would most
rejoice to see distasteful to him--low morality, false principles,
morbid excitement, not a line that ought to please a healthy mind.'--

'Yet it has interest enough for you.'

'I am not Fitzjocelyn.'

'You know how to plead for him.'

'I speak simple truth,' bluntly answered James, running his hand
through his black hair, to the ruin of the morning smoothness, so that
it, as well as the whole of his quick, dark countenance seemed to have
undergone a change from sunny south to stormy north in the few moments
since his first appearance.

After a short silence, Lord Ormersfield turned to him, saying 'I have
been begging a favour of my aunt, and I have another to ask of you,'
and repeating his explanation, begged him to undertake the tutorship of
his son.

'I shall not be at liberty at Easter,' said James, 'I have all but
undertaken some men at Oxford.'

'Oh, my dear Jem!' exclaimed the old lady, 'is that settled beyond
alteration?'

'I'm not going to throw them over.'

'Then I shall hope for you at Midsummer,' said the Earl.

'We shall see how things stand,' he returned, ungraciously.

'I shall write to you,' said Lord Ormersfield, still undaunted, and
soon after taking his leave.

'Cool!' cried James, as soon as he was gone. 'To expect you