"That is the same, mother, and a better-hearted fellow it would be hard to find."
"There is only one disadvantage that I see in your having him as an intimate friend," said Uncle Brunton, "and that is, he is now very differently situated in position to you as regards wealth, and you might find him a companion more liable to lead you into expense than any of your other friends, because I know what a proud fellow you are, George," he said, laughingly, "you like to do as your friends do, and would not let them incur expense on your account unless you could return their compliment. But I will not commence a moral discourse to-night—it is time all good folks should be in bed."
All the next day George was thinking over the events of the previous evening; he was pleased to have found out Harry Ashton, and thought he would be just the young man he wanted for a companion. Then he compared their different modes of life—Ashton living in luxuriant circumstances, without anybody or anything to interfere with his enjoyment, and he, obliged to live very humbly and carefully in order to make both ends meet; and then came a new feeling, that of restraint.
"There is Ashton," he thought, "can go out when he likes and where he likes, without its being necessary to say where he is going or what he is going to do, and he can come in at night without being obliged to account for all his actions like a child. If I happen to stay out, there is Uncle Brunton and my mother in a great state of excitement about me, which I don't think is right. I really do not wonder that the clerks have made me a laughing-stock. All this while I have lived in London I have seen nothing; have not been to any of the places of amusement; and have not been a bit like the young men with whom I get thrown into contact. I think Ashton is right, after all, in saying that when he was at school he did as school-boys did, and when he came to London he did as the Londoners do. Far be it from me to be undutiful to those who care for me; but I think, as a young man, I do owe a duty to myself, different altogether from that which belonged to me as a schoolboy."
These were all new thoughts to George: he had never felt or even thought of restraint before; he had never even expressed a wish to do as other young men did, in wasting precious time on useless amusements; he had always looked forward to an evening at home with pleasure, and had never felt the least inclination to wander forth in search of recreation elsewhere. Nay, he had always condemned it; and when Lawson or Williams, or any of the other clerks, had proposed such a thing to him, he never minded bearing their ridicule in declining.
And here was George's danger. He was upon his guard with his fellow-clerks, and was able to keep his resolution not to adopt their ideas, nor fall into their ways and habits; but when those very evils he condemned in them were presented to him in a different form by Harry Ashton, his old friend and school-fellow—leaving the principle the same, and only the practice a little altered—he was off his guard; and the habits he regarded with dislike in Williams and Lawson, he was beginning secretly to admire in Ashton.
As he walked home that evening with Hardy he gave him a long description of his meeting with Ashton, and all that happened during his interview and upon his return home.
"Now, Hardy," said George, "which do you think is really preferable—Harry Ashton's life or ours? We never go out anywhere; and, for the matter of that, might as well be living in monasteries, as far as knowing what is going on in the world is concerned."
"For my own part, Weston," said Hardy, "I would rather be as I am. Your friend is surrounded with infinitely greater temptations than we are, from the fact of his living as he does without any control. He is evidently free from his parents, and although he is old enough to take care of himself, still there is a certain restraint felt under a parent's roof which is very desirable."
"Quite true," said George; "but that involves a point which has been perplexing me all day. Should we, after we have arrived at a certain age, acknowledge a parent's control as we did when we were mere school-boys? I do not mean are we to cease to honour them, because that we cannot do while God's commandment lasts; but are we, as Williams says, always to go in leading-strings, or are we at liberty to think and act for ourselves?"