"I do not know, my dear. He did not say why he was going."
"I think he has. I wish I could make him understand."
"Understand what, my dear?"
"All that I feel about it. I am sure it would save him much trouble. Nothing can ever separate me from my cousin."
"Pray don't say so, Emily."
"Nothing can. Is it not better that you and he should know the truth? Papa goes about trying to find out all the naughty things that George has ever done. There has been some mistake about a race meeting, and all manner of people are asked to give what Papa calls evidence that Cousin George was there. I do not doubt but George has been what people call dissipated."
"We do hear such dreadful stories!"
"You would not have thought anything about them if it had not been for me. He is not worse now than when he came down here last year. And he was always asked to Bruton Street."
"What do you mean by this, dear?"
"I do not mean to say that young men ought to do all these things, whatever they are,—getting into debt, and betting, and living fast. Of course it is very wrong. But when a young man has been brought up in that way, I do think he ought not to be thrown over by his nearest and dearest friends"—that last epithet was uttered with all the emphasis which Emily could give to it—"because he falls into temptation."