se he apparently succeeded. His mother still reiterated her
opinion that Mr. Balfour was a dangerous personage, and not a fit
companion for any young man. Charles smiled at this, for it was the
almost literal fulfillment of a prophecy which Balfour had made to him,
and believed in that gentleman's sagacity, accordingly, more than ever.
Women were so ludicrously prejudiced; the fact of Mrs. Basil's--"the
white witch"--not being so was an exception that proved the rule. She
had been evidently interested in his anecdotes, of one of which she had
even requested to hear the particulars twice over; not that, in his own
judgment, it was the best, but, being of a weird sort, it had probably
struck her fancy. It had lost in the telling, too--for he did not
pretend to have the gift of narrative, as Mr. Balfour had--and his
mother had seen in the story in question nothing at all.

Mrs. Basil came down stairs no more after that evening. She grew worse
and worse, and was not only confined to her room, but to her bed. Harry
was not much with her; she seized with avidity this opportunity of being
alone with Charley to undo, as far as she could, Mr. Balfour's work with
him. This was not hard, for the boy was a creature of impulse, and
swayed for good or ill with equal ease. But she discovered that it would
be useless to attempt henceforth to conceal from him the nature of his
future prospects. He was now firmly convinced that he was the heir to a
large fortune, and she regretted too late that she had left the
disclosure to a stranger. What grieved her much more, and with reason,
was that an attempt which she now made to bring the influence of Agnes
to hear upon him proved unsuccessful; the girl resolutely refused to
come to the house in the absence of its master, and contrary, as she
knew, to his express commandment. Charley himself, too, whose visits to
Mr. Aird's studio had been intermitted for some time, was received in
Soho with coldness. It was not in Harry's nature to understand this
independence of spirit, and she deeply deplored it on her son's account.
She had looked to this young girl to be his guardian angel, and had
never anticipated that she could possibly decline to watch over a charge
so precious. She would not allow, even to herself, that her son's own
conduct was as much the cause of this as her husband's ill favor; but
she saw in it, clearly enough, the mark of the cloven hoof, the work of
Balfour.

Sick Mrs. Basil c