Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/291

Rh an argumentum ad hominem, which all her filial logic would not be able to resist); "and suppose you threw yourself on the confidence of a young girl of your own age, what should you think of her if she refused to assist you; and what would Fred, think of that young lady's brother if he followed his sister's example? Fred, would call him out at once. So, as I don't want to go out with Captain Alvanley, I shall meet him with pacific intentions at the cross-roads at twelve o'clock to-night."

Nelly did not require more persuasion, so we both agreed to help poor Amy all we could, and not to mention the subject to my mother, for fear she should side with the parents, and disclose the projected elopement to Lady Glenarvon.

"Captain Alvanley," mused my sister as we wandered back to the hotel, "I cannot but help thinking that I have heard his name, and that he is a friend of Frederick's, and in the same regiment."

Now that my sister mentioned it, I had some dim recollection of the same thing; and though we could neither of us fully determine it as a fact, the mere supposition of its truth made us, if possible, more earnest in Amy's cause. We had no "Army List" to refer to, to settle the point; but when we got back to our rooms, Nelly turned up Lord Glenarvon's name in the "Peerage" (my mother never travelled without the "Peerage," and "Johnson's Dictionary") and, sure enough, we there found the name of his "sole child and heiress, the Lady Amy Frances Darnell, heir-presumptive to the barony of Darnell, born, (Amy was barely twenty). And it further stated that the "heir-presumptive to the Earldom and Barony of Arvon," was "his Lordship's eldest brother," whose son, the Hon. Henry