ver the country,--and
then wrote to Lady Ellinor to come to her. It is but a hearty laugh at
our expense, and Mrs. Grundy is content. If you don't want her to pity
or backbite, let her laugh. She is a she-Cerberus,--she wants to eat
you; well stop her mouth with a cake.

"Yes," continued this better sort of Aristippus, so wise under all his
seeming levities, "the cue thus given, everything favors it. If that
rogue of a lackey quoted Shakspeare as much in the servants' hall as he
did while I was binding him neck and heels in the kitchen, that's enough
for all the household to declare he was moon-stricken; and if we find it
necessary to do anything more, why, we must induce him to go into Bedlam
for a month or two. The disappearance of the waiting-woman is natural;
either I or Lady Ellinor send her about her business for her folly in
being so gulled by the lunatic. If that's unjust, why, injustice to
servants is common enough, public and private; neither minister nor
lackey can be forgiven if he help us into a scrape. One must vent one's
passion on something. Witness my poor cane,--though, indeed, a better
illustration would be the cane that Louis XIV. broke on a footman
because his Majesty was out of humor with the prince, whose shoulders
were too sacred for royal indignation."

"So you see," concluded Lord Castleton, lowering his voice, "that your
uncle, amongst all his other causes of sorrow, may think at least that
his name is spared in his son's. And the young man himself may find
reform easier when freed from that despair of the possibility of
redemption which Mrs. Grundy inflicts upon those who--Courage, then;
life is long!"

"My very words!" I cried; "and so repeated by you, Lord Castleton, they
seem prophetic."

"Take my advice, and don't lose sight of your cousin while his pride is
yet humbled, and his heart perhaps softened. I don't say this only for
his sake. No, it is your poor uncle I think of,--noble old fellow! And
now I think it right to pay Lady Ellinor the respect of repairing,
as well as I can, the havoc three sleepless nights have made on the
exterior of a gentleman who is on the shady side of remorseless forty."

Lord Castleton here left me, and I wrote to my father, begging him to
meet us at the next stage (which was the nearest point from the
high road to the Tower), and I sent off the letter by a messenger on
horseback. That task done, I leaned my head upon my hand, and a profound
sadness se