.

'I'm out of conceit with myself,' he said; 'I'm so idle and useless; I
wish that were all--I wish myself better, but I'm such a weak coxcomb--a
father-confessor might keep me nearer to my duty--some one to scold and
exhort me. Perhaps if some charitable lady would take me in hand,
something might be made of me still.'

There was a vein of seriousness in this reverie which amused the young
lady; for she had never heard anything worse of him--very young ladies
seldom do hear the worst--than that he had played once or twice rather
high.

'Shall I ask Gertrude Chattesworth to speak to her Aunt Rebecca?' said
Lilias slyly. 'Suppose you attend her school in Martin's Row, with
"better late than never" over her chimneypiece: there are two pupils of
your own sex, you know, and you might sit on the bench with poor Potts
and good old Doolan.'

'Thank you. Miss Lilias,' he answered, with a bow and a little laugh, as
it seemed just the least bit in the world piqued; 'I know she would do
it zealously; but neither so well nor so wisely as others might; I wish
I dare ask _you_ to lecture me.'

'I!' said that young lady. 'Oh, yes, I forgot,' she went on merrily,'
five years ago, when I was a little girl, you once called me Dr.
Walsingham's curate, I was so grave--do you remember?'

She did not know how much obliged Devereux was to her for remembering
that poor little joke, and how much the handsome lieutenant would have
given, at that instant, to kiss the hand of the grave little girl of
five years ago.

'I was a more impudent fellow then,' he said, 'than I am now; won't you
forget my old impertinences, and allow me to make atonement, and be
your--your _very_ humble servant now?'

She laughed. 'Not my servant--but you know I can't help you being my
parishioner.'

'And as such surely I may plead an humble right to your counsels and
reproof. Yes, you _shall_ lecture me--I'll bear it from none but _you_,
and the more you do it, the happier, at least, you make me,' he said.

'Alas, if my censure is pleasant to you, 'tis a certain sign it can do
you no good.'

'It _shall_ do me good, and be it never so bitter and so true, it will
be pleasant to me too,' he answered, with an honest and very peculiar
light in his dark, strange eyes; and after a little pause, 'I'll tell
you why, just because I had rather you remembered my faults, than that
you did not remember me at all.'

'But, 'tis not my business to make people angry.'