id the
same thing; there would be nothing so useful for him as a tour on the
Continent, seeing plenty of the world and going into society.

So Lady Carruthers, who loved home very dearly, gave up its peaceful
tranquillity, and went with Basil and Miss Hautville to Paris, where
they remained some months until they saw all that was most brilliant in
that brilliant capital; from there to Berlin; then on to Vienna, and
Basil lost much of his dreamy nature.

He was eager, ardent, impetuous, longing, as is the fashion of young
men, to do brave deeds, to be a great hero, and not in the least knowing
what to do.

He was just twenty when they returned home, at the commencement of the
year; Lady Carruthers, worn out with travel and excitement, longing for
rest. There was more to be done--her son had been presented at most of
the courts of Europe; he must attend the first levees held in London
this season.

The Carruthers had a magnificent mansion in Belgravia. Miss Hautville
begged for one year more of seclusion and privacy, so that Lady
Hildegarde and her son went to London alone. She remained there for a
week, and then, finding her son afloat in London society, she returned
to Ulverston.

And Basil Carruthers, the dreamy, ardent, romantic boy, remained in
London alone.

CHAPTER VII.

A Modern Bayard.

Perhaps Lady Carruthers never did a more unwise thing than when she left
her son, with his peculiar temperament and notions, to go through a
London season alone. She honestly believed herself to be doing right.
She was ill and unable to bear the whirl of fashion and gaiety. She
could not withdraw him from town to spend the gayest month of the year
in seclusion.

"Leave him to me, Hildegarde," said her cousin, Colonel Mostyn. "I will
pilot him safely through the rocks and deep waters; nothing makes a man
as self-reliant as feeling that he is trusted entirely."

And knowing that Colonel Mostyn was an elderly man, who knew about as
much as there was to know of life in all its phases, Lady Hildegarde had
no scruples.

The colonel and the young squire were most luxuriously established at
Roche House, the Carruthers' family mansion in Belgravia. Lady
Hildegarde made every arrangement for keeping up the establishment in
all bachelor's comforts. There was an excellent housekeeper, one who had
been at Ulverston Priory for many years.

"You will be able to give some good dinner-parties," she said to her
son; "bache