Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/174

 boys looked on you with a solemn respect, as the depositary of all his state secrets--how vainly you tried to decoy that poor timid Matilda, his daughter, into a share of your own audacity!--Is not all this true?"

"Oh yes, yes--old days gone for ever!"

"Do I not remember how you promised that, before I went back to school, I should hear Darrell read aloud--how you brought the volume of Milton to him in the evening--how he said, 'No, to-morrow night; I must now go to the House of Commons'--how I marvelled to hear you answer boldly, 'To-morrow night George will have left us, and I have promised that he shall hear you read'--and how, looking at you under those dark brows with serious softness, he said: 'Right: promises once given, must be kept. But was it not rash to promise in another's name?'--and you answered, half gently, half pettishly, 'As if you could fail me!' He took the book without another word, and read. What reading it was too! And do you not remember another time, how--"

LADY MONTFORT (interrupting with nervous impatience).--"Ay, ay--I need no reminding of all--all! Kindest, noblest, gentlest friend to a giddy, heedless child, unable to appreciate the blessing. But now, George, I dare not, I cannot write to Mr. Darrell."

George mused a moment, and conjectured that Lady Montfort had, in the inconsiderate impulsive season of youth, aided in the clandestine marriage of Darrell's daughter, and had become thus associated in his mind with the affliction that had embittered his existence. Were this so, certainly she would not be the fitting, intercessor on behalf of Sophy. His thoughts then turned to his uncle, Darrell's earliest friend, not suspecting that Colonel Morley was actually the person whom Darrell had already appointed his adviser and representative in all transactions that might concern the very parties under discussion. But just as he was about to suggest the expediency of writing to Alban to return to England, and taking him into confidence and consultation, Lady Montfort resumed, in a calmer voice and with a less troubled countenance:

"Who should be the pleader for one whose claim, if acknowledged, would affect his own fortunes, but Lionel Haughton?--Hold!--look where yonder they come into sight--there by the gap in the evergreens. May we not hope