The breakfast at the Villa Caprini always seemed to recall more of English daily life and habit than any other event of the day. It was not only in the luxuriously spread table, and the sideboard arrayed with that picturesque profusion so redolent of home, but there was that gay and hearty familiarity so eminently the temper of the hour, and that pleasant interchange of news and gossip, as each tore the envelope of his letter, or caught some amusing paragraph in his paper.

Mrs. Penthony Morris had a very wide correspondence, and usually contributed little scraps of intelligence from various parts of the Continent. They were generally the doings and sayings of that cognate world whose names require no introduction, and even those to whom they are unfamiliar would rather hear in silence than own to the ignorance. The derelicts of fashion are the staple of small-talk; they are suggestive of all the little social smartness one hears, and of that very Brummagem morality which assumes to judge them. In these Mrs. Morris revelled. No paragraph of the “Morning Post” was too mysteriously worded for her powers of interpretation; no asterisks could veil a name from her piercing gaze. Besides, she had fashioned a sort of algebraic code of life which wonderfully assisted her divination, and being given an unhappy marriage, she could foretell the separation, or, with the data of a certain old gentleman's visits to St. John's Wood, could predict his will with an accuracy that seemed marvellous. As she sat, surrounded with letters and notes of all sizes, she varied the tone of her intelligence so artfully as to canvass the suffrage of every listener. Now it was some piece of court gossip, some “scandal of Queen Elizabeth,” now a curious political intrigue, and now, again, some dashing exploit of a young soldier in India. But whether it told of good or evil fortune, of some deeply interesting event or some passing triviality, her power of narrating it was considerable, as, with a tact all her own, she selected some one especial individual as chief listener. After a number of short notices of London, Rome, and Paris, she tossed over several letters carelessly, saying,—

“I believe I have given you the cream of my correspondence. Stay, here is something about your old sloop the 'Mosquito,' Lord Agincourt; would you like to hear of how she attacked the forts at the mouth of the—oh, how shall I attack it?—the Bhageebhahoo? This is a midshipman's letter, written the same evening of the action.”

Though the question was addressed very pointedly, the boy never heard it, but sat deeply engaged in deciphering a very jagged handwriting in a letter before him. It was one of those scratchy, unfinished specimens of penmanship which are amongst the luxuries persons of condition occasionally indulge in. Seeing his preoccupation, Mrs. Morris did not repeat her question, but suffered him to pursue his researches undisturbed. He had just begun his breakfast when the letter arrived, and now he ceased to eat anything, but seemed entirely engrossed by his news. At last he arose abruptly, and left the room.

“I hope Agincourt has not got any bad tidings,” said Sir William; “he seems agitated and uneasy.”

“I saw his guardian's name—Sommerville—on the envelope,” said Mrs. Morris. “It is, probably, one of those pleasant epistles which wards receive quarterly to remind them that even minors have miseries.”

The meal did not recover its pleasant tone after this little incident, and soon after they all scattered through the house and the grounds, Mrs. Morris setting out for her usual woodland walk, which she took each morning. A half-glance the boy had given her as he quitted the room at breakfast-time, induced her to believe that he wanted to consult her about his letter, and so, as she entered the shrubbery, she was not surprised to find Lord Agincourt there before her.

“I was just wishing it might be your footstep I heard on the gravel,” said he, joining her. “May I keep you company?”

“To be sure, provided you don't make love to me, which I never permit in the forenoon.”

“Oh, I have other thoughts in my head,” said he, sighing drearily; “and you are the very one to advise me what to do. Not, indeed, that I have any choice about that, only how to do it, that's the question.”

“When one has the road marked out, it's never very hard to decide on the mode of the journey,” said she. “Tell me what your troubles are.”

“Troubles you may well call them,” said he, with a deeper sigh. “There, read that—if you can read it—for the old Earl does not grow more legible by being older.”

“'Crews Court,'” read she, aloud. “Handsome old abbey it must be,” added she, remarking on a little tinted sketch at the top of the letter.

“Yes, that's a place of mine. I was born there,” said the boy, half proudly.

“It's quite princely.”

“It's a fine old thing, and I 'd give it all this minute not to have had that disagreeable letter.”

“'My dear Henry,'” began she, in a low, muttering voice, “'I have heard with—with'—not abomination—oh no, 'astonishment—with astonishment, not unmixed with'—it can't be straw—is it straw?—no, it is 'shame,—not unmixed with shame, that you have so far forgiven—forgotten'—oh, that's it—'what was done to yourself.'”

“No, 'what was due to yourself,'” interrupted he; “that's a favorite word of his, and so I know it.”

“'To become the—the'—dear me, what can this be with the vigorous G at the beginning?—'to become'—is it really the Giant?—'to become the Giant'—”

The boy here burst into a fit of laughing, and, taking the letter from her, proceeded to read it out.

“I have spelt it all over five times,” said he, “and I know it by heart. 'I have heard with astonishment, not unmixed with shame, that you have so far forgotten what was due to yourself as to become the Guest of one who for so many years was the political opponent and even personal enemy of our house. Your ignorance of family history cannot possibly be such as that you are unaware of the claims once put forward by this same Sir William Heathcote to your father's peerage, or of the disgraceful law proceedings instituted to establish his pretensions.' As if I ever heard a word of all this before! as if I knew or cared a brass button about the matter!” burst he in. “'Had your tutor'—here comes in my poor coach for his turn,” said Agincourt—“'had your tutor but bestowed proper attention to the instructions written by my own hand for his guidance.—We never could read them; we have been at them for hours together, and all we could make out was, 'Let him study hazard, roulette, and all other such games;' which rather surprised us, till we found out it was 'shun,' and not 'study,' and 'only frequent the fast society of each city he visits,' which was a mistake for 'first.'”

“Certainly the noble Lord has a most ambiguous calligraphy,” said she, smiling; “and Mr. Layton is not so culpable as might be imagined.”

“Ah!” cried the boy, laughing, “I wish you had seen Alfred's face on the day he received our first quarter's remittance, and read out: 'You may drag on me like a mouse, if you please,' which was intended to be, 'draw upon me to a like amount, if you please;' and it was three weeks before we could make that out! But let me go on—where was I? Oh, at 'guidance.' 'Recent information has, however, shown me that nothing could have been more unfortunate than our choice of this young man, his father being one of the most dangerous individuals known to the police, a man familiar with the lowest haunts of crime, a notorious swindler, and a libeller by profession. In the letter which I send off by this day's post to your tutor I have enclosed one from his father to myself. It is not very likely that he will show it to you, as it contains the most insolent demands for an increase of salary—“as some slight, though inadequate, compensation for an office unbecoming my son's rank, insulting to his abilities, and even damaging to his acquirements.” I give you this in his own choice language, but there is much more in the same strain. The man, it would appear, has just come out of a lunatic asylum, to which place his intemperate habits had brought him; and I may mention that his first act of gratitude to the benevolent individual who had undertaken the whole cost of his maintenance there was to assault him in the open street, and give him a most savage beating. Captain Hone or Holmes—a distinguished officer, as I am told—is still confined to his room from the consequences.'”

“How very dreadful!” said Mrs. Morris calmly. “Shocking treatment! for a distinguished officer too!”

“Dreadful fellow he must be,” said the boy. “What a rare fright he must have given my old guardian! But the end of it all is, I 'm to leave Alfred, and go back to England at once. I wish I was going to sea again; I wish I was off thousands of miles away, and not to come home for years. To part with the kind, good fellow, that was like a brother to me, this way,—how can I do it? And do you perceive, he has n't one word to say against Alfred? It's only that he has the misfortune of this terrible father. And, after all, might not that be any one's lot? You might have a father you couldn't help being ashamed of.”

“Of course,” said she; “I can fancy such a case easily enough.”

“I know it will nearly kill poor Alfred; he 'll not be able to bear it. He's as proud as he is clever, and he'll not endure the tone of the Earl's letter. Who knows what he 'll do? Can you guess?”

“'Not in the least. I imagine that he 'll submit as patiently as he can, and look out for another situation.”

“Ah, there you don't know him!” broke in the boy: “he can't endure this kind of thing. He only consented to take me because his health was breaking up from hard reading; he wanted rest and a change of climate. At first he refused altogether, and only gave way when some of his college dons over-persuaded him.”

She smiled a half-assent, but said nothing.

“Then there's another point,” said he, suddenly: “I'm sure his Lordship has not been very measured in the terms of his letter to him. I can just fancy the tone of it; and I don't know how poor Alfred is to bear that.”

“My dear boy, you'll learn one of these days—and the knowledge will come not the less soon from your being a Peer—that all the world is either forbearing or overbearing. You must be wolf or lamb: there's no help for it.”

“Alfred never told me so,” said he, sternly.

“It's more than likely that he did not know! There are no men know less of life than these college creatures; and there lies the great mistake in selecting such men for tutors for our present-day life and its accidents. Alexandre Dumas would be a safer guide than Herodotus; and Thackeray teach you much more than Socrates.”

“If I only had in my head one-half of what Alfred knew, I 'd be well satisfied,” said the boy. “Ay, and what's better still, without his thinking a bit about it.”

“And so,” said she, musingly, “you are to go back to England?”

“That does not seem quite settled, for he says, in a postscript, that Sir George Rivers, one of the Cabinet, I believe, has mentioned some gentleman, a 'member of their party,' now in Italy, and who would probably consent to take charge of me till some further arrangements could be come to.”

“Hold your chain till a new bear-leader turned up!” said she, laughing. “Oh dear! I wonder when that wise generations of guardians will come to know that the real guide for the creatures like you is a woman. Yes, you ought to be travelling with your governess,—some one whose ladylike tone and good manners would insensibly instil quietness, reserve, and reverence in your breeding, correct your bad French, and teach you to enter or leave a room without seeming to be a housebreaker!”

“I should like to know who does that?” asked he, indignantly.

“Every one of you young Englishmen, whether you come fresh from Brasenose or the Mess of the Forty-something, you have all of you the same air of bashful bull-dogs!”

“Oh, come, this is too bad; is this the style of Charles Heathcote, for instance?”

“Most essentially it is; the only thing is that, the bulldog element predominating in his nature, he appears the less awkward in consequence.”

“I should like to bear what you 'd say of the O'Shea.”

“Oh, Mr. O'Shea is an Irishman, and their ways bear the same relation to general good breeding that rope-dancing does to waltzing.”

“I 'll take good care not to ask you for any description of myself,” said he, laughingly.

“You are very wrong then, for you should have heard something excessively flattering,” was her reply. “Shall I tell you who your new protector is to be?” cried she, after a moment's pause; “I have just guessed it: the O'Shea himself!”

“O'Shea! impossible; how could you imagine such a thing?”

“I'm certain I'm right. He is always talking of his friend Sir George Rivers—he calls him Rivers,—who is Colonial Secretary, and who is to make him either Bishop of Barbadoes or a Gold Stick at the Gambia; and you 'll see if I 'm not correct, and that the wardship of a young scapegrace lordling is to be the retaining fee of this faithful follower of his party. Of course, there will be no question of tutorship; in fact, it would have such an unpleasant resemblance to the farce and Mr. O'Toole, as to be impossible. You will simply be travelling together. It will be double harness, but only one horse doing the work!”

“I never can make out whether you 're in jest or in earnest,” said he, pettishly.

“I'm always in earnest when I'm jesting; that's the only clue I can give you.”

“But all this time we have been wandering away from the only thing I wanted to think of,—how to part with dear Alfred. You have told me nothing about that.”

“These are things which, as the French say, always do themselves, and, consequently, it is better never to plan or provide for; and, remember, as a maxim, whenever the current is carrying you the way you want to go, put in your oar as little as possible. And as to old associations, they are like old boots: they are very pleasant wear, but they won't last forever. There now, I have given you quite enough matter to think over: and so, good-bye.”

As Agincourt turned his steps slowly towards the house, he marvelled with himself what amount of guidance she had given him.