"Thank you, Ashton, for your share in the entertainment to-night. I will talk to you about the play some other time; but I must say, candidly, I never felt so distressed in my life as I did while that gross insult to all good feeling, 'The Serious Family,' was being performed. If you had said to me what that wretch, Captain Maguire, said in my hearing to-night, I would not have shaken hands with you again as I do now."
An omnibus happened to be passing for the Angel at Islington that moment, and George and Hardy got up.
"What shall we do with regard to Williams and Lawson?" said Hardy. "They have got a victory to-night. I fear our protest against theatres and taverns is over with them for ever now, seeing they have caught us at both places."
"I cannot but regret the circumstance," said George, "but it is nothing to them; they are not our father-confessors, and we are not bound to enter into any particulars with them. The greatest difficulty with me is how to manage when I get home. I don't like deceiving my mother; but I should not like to pain her by saying I have been to the theatre. She knew I started for the institution, and that I might possibly be late; so, unless she asks me where I have been, I don't see that there will be any good in unnecessarily distressing her."
"The disagreeable thing in such a case is," replied Hardy, "if the fact comes out afterwards, it looks as if a deception had been practised."
George and Hardy had never talked together like this before; and they spoke hesitatingly, as if they hardly liked to hear their own voices joining to discuss a mean, unworthy, dishonourable trick.
O temptation! what an inclined path is thine! How slippery for the feet, and how rapidly the unwary traveller slides along, lower and lower—each step making the attempt to ascend again to high ground more difficult! George had made many dangerous slips that night—would he ever regain his position?
Mrs. Weston was sitting up for George, and pleased was she to hear, at last, his knock at the door.
"Mother, this is too bad of me, keeping you up so late," said George. "I really did not mean to keep bad hours to-night; but I will turn over a new leaf for the future."
"I do not mind sitting up, George, if it is for your good," she answered; "but I fear you will not improve your health by being so late as this. Have you enjoyed your meeting to-night?"