ll still be engaged to him.
I told him how it would be. I said that, as long as you or Mamma
lived, I would never marry without your leave. Nor would I see him,
or write to him without your knowledge. I told him so. But I told him
also that I would always be true to him. I mean to keep my word."

"If you find him to be utterly worthless, you cannot be bound by such
a promise."

"I hope it may not be so. I do not believe that it is so. I know him
too well to think that he can be utterly worthless. But if he was,
who should try to save him from worthlessness if not his nearest
relatives? We try to reclaim the worst criminals, and sometimes we
succeed. And he must be the head of the family. Remember that. Ought
we not to try to reclaim him? He cannot be worse than the prodigal
son."

"He is ten times worse. I cannot tell you what has been his life."

"Papa, I have often thought that in our rank of life society is
responsible for the kind of things which young men do. If he was at
Goodwood, which I do not believe, so was Mr. Stackpoole. If he was
betting, so was Mr. Stackpoole."

"But Mr. Stackpoole did not lie."

"I don't know that," she said, with a little toss of her head.

"Emily, you have no business either to say or to think it."

"I care nothing for Mr. Stackpoole whether he tells truth or not. He
and his wife have made themselves very disagreeable,--that is all.
But as for George, he is what he is, because other young men are
allowed to be the same."

"You do not know the half of it."

"I know as much as I want to know, Papa. Let one keep as clear of it
as one can, it is impossible not to hear how young men live. And yet
they are allowed to go everywhere, and are flattered and encouraged.
I do not pretend that George is better than others. I wish he were.
Oh, how I wish it! But such as he is he belongs in a way to us, and
we ought not to desert him. He belongs, I know, to me, and I will not
desert him."

Sir Harry felt that there was no arguing with such a girl as this.
Some time since he had told her that it was unfit that he should be
brought into an argument with his own child, and there was nothing
now for him but to fall back upon the security which that assertion
gave him. He could not charge her with direct disobedience, because
she had promised him that she would not do any of those things
which, as a father, he had a right to forbid. He relied fully on her
promise, and so far might feel himse