Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

LADY ASCOT'S LITTLE NAP. 63
came a long letter from his father,- a scolding, loving letter,in which Densil showed plainly that he was trying to be angry,
and could not, for joy at having his son home with him, and concluded by saying that he should never allude to the circumstance
again, and by praying him to come back at once from that wicked,
cock-fighting, horse-racing Ranford. There was an enclosure for
Lord Saltire, the reading of which caused his lordship to take a
great deal of snuff, in which he begged him, for old fiiendship's
sake, to send his boy home to him, as he had once sent him home
to his father. And so Lord Saltire appeared in Charles's dressing-room before dinner one day, and, sitting down, said that he
was come to take a great liberty, and, in fact, was rather presuming on his being an old man, but he hoped that his young friend
would not take it amiss from a man old enough to be his grandfather, if he recommended him to'leave that house, and go home
to his father's. Ranford was a most desirable house in every
way; but, at the same time, it was what he believed the young
men of the day called a fast house; and he would not conceal
from his young friend that his father had requested him to use
his influence to make him return home; and he did beg his old
friend's son to believe that he was actuated by the best of motives.
" Dear Lord Saltire," said Charles, taking the old man's hand,
" I am going home to-morrow; and you don't know how heartily
I thank you for the interest you always take in me."
" I know nothing," said Lord Saltire, "more pleasing to a battered old fellow like myself than to contemplate the ingenuousness
of youth; and you must allow me to say that your ingenuousness sits uncommonly well upon you, - in fact, is very becoming.
I conceived a considerable interest in you the first time I saw
you, on that very account. I should like to have had a son like
you, but it was not to be. I had a son, who was all that could be
desired by the most fastidious person, brought up in a far better
school than mine; but he got -shot in his first duel, at one-andtwenty. I remember to have been considerably annoyed at the
time," continued the old gentleman, taking a pinch of snuff, and
looking steadily at Charles without moving a muscle; "but I
dare say it was all for the best. He might have run in debt, or*
married a woman with red hair, or fifty things. Well, I wish you
good day, and beg your forgiveness once more for the liberty I
have taken."
Charles slipped away from the dinner-table early that evening,
and, while Lady Ascot was having her after-dinner nap, had a
long conversation with Adelaide in the dark, which was very
pleasant to one of the parties concerned, at any rate.
"Adelaide, I am going home to-morrow."
"Are you really? Are you going so suddenly?"