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now not the danger of such friendship: I do. Obey me, at your peril." Never in his life had Aubrey heard such words from the usually soft, sweet lips of the Lady Lettice. He was thoroughly frightened, all the more because the dangers to be feared were so vague and unknown. A few minutes before, he had been feeling vexed with his Aunt Temperance for catechising him so strictly about his friends. Now, this sensation had quite given way before astonishment and vague apprehension. "Yes, Madam, I will," he answered gravely. And he meant it. But-- What a number of excellent people, and what a multiplicity of good deeds, there would be in this naughty world, if only that little conjunction could be left out! Aubrey quitted the White Bear with the full intention of carrying out his grandmother's behest. But not just now. He must do it, of course, before he saw her again. Lady Oxford might take it into her head to pay a visit to Lady Louvaine, in which case it would surely be discovered if the question had not been passed on. Of course it must be done: only, not just now. He might surely spend a few more pleasant evenings at Winter's lodgings, before he set on foot those disagreeable inquiries which might end in his being deprived of the pleasure. Lady Oxford, therefore, was not troubled that evening,--nor the next, nor indeed for a goodly number to follow. But within a week of his visit to the White Bear, when the sharp edge of his grandmother's words had been a little blunted by time, and the cares of other things had entered in, Aubrey again made his way to the lodgings occupied by Winter at the sign of the Duck, in the Strand, "hard by Temple Bar." There were various reasons for this action. In the first place, Aubrey was entirely convinced that the judgment of a man of twenty-one was to be preferred before that of a woman of seventy-seven. Secondly, he enjoyed Winter's society. Thirdly, he liked Winter's tobacco. Fourthly, he admired Betty, who usually let him in, and who, being even more foolish than himself, was not at all averse to a few empty compliments and a little frothy banter, which he was very ready to bestow. For Aubrey was not of that sterling metal of which his grandfather had been made, "who loved one only and who clave to her," and to whom it would have been a moral impossibility to flirt with one woman while he was making serious love to another. Lastly, the society of his frien
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