no advice," said Mr. Malcolm
drily. Presently he said, "Were those people some of your new friends
who were calling on you? they have kept me in the shop this
three-quarters of an hour; and the fellow who has just come down nearly
threw me over the baluster."

"Oh no, sir, I know nothing of them; they were the most unwelcome of
intruders."

"As some one else seems to be," said Mr. Malcolm.

Charles was very much hurt; the more so, because he had nothing to say;
he kept silence.

"Well, Charles," said Mr. Malcolm, not looking at him, "I have known you
from this high; more, from a child in arms. A frank, open boy you were;
I don't know what has spoiled you. These Jesuits, perhaps.... It was not
so in your father's lifetime."

"My dear sir," said Charles, "it pierces me to the heart to hear you
talk so. You have indeed always been most kind to me. If I have erred,
it has been an error of judgment; and I am very sorry for it, and hope
you will forgive it. I acted for the best; but I have been, as you must
feel, in a most trying situation. My mother has known what I was
contemplating this year past."

"Trying situation! fudge! What have you to do with situations? I could
have told you a great deal about these Catholics; I know all about them.
Error of judgment! don't tell me. I know how these things happen quite
well. I have seen such things before; only I thought you a more sensible
fellow. There was young Dalton of St. Cross; he goes abroad, and falls
in with a smooth priest, who persuades the silly fellow that the
Catholic Church is the ancient and true Church of England, the only
religion for a gentleman; he is introduced to a Count this, and a
Marchioness that, and returns a Catholic. There was another; what was
his name? I forget it, of a Berkshire family. He is smitten with a
pretty face; nothing will serve but he must marry her; but she's a
Catholic, and can't marry a heretic; so he, forsooth, gives up the
favour of his uncle and his prospects in the county, for his fair
Juliet. There was another,--but it's useless going on. And, now I wonder
what has taken you."

All this was the best justification for Charles's not having spoken to
Mr. Malcolm on the subject. That gentleman had had his own experience of
thirty or forty years, and, like some great philosophers, he made that
personal experience of his the decisive test of the possible and the
true. "I know them," he continued--"I know them; a set of hypocrit