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