last," replied Harry, shaking Lawless warmly by the hand;
"but I've had a narrow escape of losing my life, I can assure you."

"No; really I didn't know it had been as bad as that I By Jove, if
he had killed you, I'd have shot that blackhearted villain, Wilford,
myself, and chanced about his putting a bullet into me while I was doing
it."

"My dear Lawless, I thank you for your kind feeling towards me; but I
cannot bear to hear you speak in that light way of duelling," returned
Oaklands gravely; "if men did but know the misery they were entailing
on all those who cared for them by their rash acts, independently of all
higher considerations, duelling, and its twin brother, suicide, would be
less frequent than they are. When I have seen the tears stealing down
my father's grief-worn cheeks, and witnessed the anxious, painful
expression in the faces of the kind friends who were nursing me, and
have reflected that it was by yielding to my own ungoverned passions
that I had brought all this sorrow upon them, my remorse has often been
far harder to bear than any pain my wound has caused me."

At this moment, my mother and Fanny making their appearance, I hastened
to introduce Lawless, who, being greatly alarmed at the ceremony, grew
very red in the face, shuffled my mother into a corner of the room, and
upset a chair against her, stumbling over Harry's legs, and knocking
down the chessboard in the excess of his penitence. Having, with my
assistance, remedied these disasters, after stigmatising himself as an
awkward dog, and comparing himself to a bull in a china-shop, he turned
to Fanny, exclaiming:--

"Delighted to have the pleasure of seeing you at last, Miss Fairlegh; it
is several years since I first heard of ~324~~ you. Do you remember the
writing-desk at old Mildman's, eh, Frank? no end of a shame of me to
spoil it; I have often thought so since; but boys will be boys, eh, Mrs.
Fairlegh?"

My mother acquiesced in this obstinate adherence to their primary
formation on the part of the junior members of the nobler sex with so
much cordiality that Lawless was encouraged to proceed. "Glad to find
there's a chance of seeing you out with us some of these days, ma'am;
shall we be able to persuade you to accompany us to-morrow?"

"Yes, I think it very likely that I may go," returned my mother, who
imagined he was referring to some proposed drive; "in what direction
will it be, pray?"

"Direction, eh? Why that of course