which you don't care, and when you can't
walk: you show the most pointed neglect. And after being done-up
yesterday, you repeat the experiment to-day, as if for the mere object
of laming yourself for life. I could understand pique or temper, but
you have not the--'

'The sense,' said Louis; 'no, nor anything to be piqued at.'

'If there be a motive,' said James, 'I have a right to demand not to be
trifled with any longer.'

'I wish you could be content to shoot your birds, and leave me in
peace: you will only have your fun spoilt, like mine, and go into a
fury. The fact is, that my father writes in a state of perturbation.
He says, I might have understood, from the tenor of his conduct, that
he did not wish me to be intimate with my aunt's family! He cannot
know anything about them, for it is all one warning against fashion and
frivolity. He does not blame us--especially not you.'

'I wish he did.'

'But he desires that our intercourse should be no more than propriety
demands, and plunges into a discourse against first impressions,
beauty, and the like.'

'So that's the counterblast!'

'You ought to help me, Jem,' said Louis, dejectedly.

'I'll help you with all my heart to combat your father's prejudices.'

'An hour's unrestrained intercourse with these people would best
destroy them,' said Louis; 'but, in the mean time--I wonder what he
means.'

'He means that he is in terror for his darling scheme.'

'Mrs. Ponsonby was very right,' sighed Louis.

'Ay! A pretty condition you would be in, if she had not had too much
principle to let you be a victim to submission. That's what you'll
come to, though! You will never know the meaning of passion; you will
escape something by it, though you will be twisted round his lordship's
finger, and marry his choice. I hope she will have red hair!'

'Negative and positive obedience stand on different grounds,' said
Louis, with such calmness as often fretted James, but saved their
friendship. 'Besides, till I had this letter, I had no notion of any
such thing.'

James's indignation resulted in fierce stammering; while Louis
deliberately continued a viva voce self-examination, with his own
quaint naivete, betraying emotion only by the burning colour of cheek
and brow.

'No; I had no such notion. I only felt that her presence had the
gladdening, inspiriting, calming effect of moonlight or starlight. I
reverenced her as a dream of poetry walking the earth. H