"Lord bless you, no! I shouldn't make no hand of that. I ain't brave enough for that!"
He gave the boy twopence, and gave orders that one penny was to be spent in a ball. And then he sauntered listlessly away—every day more listless, and not three weeks gone yet.
His mind returned to this child very often. He found himself thinking more about the little rogue than he could explain. The strange babble of the child, prattling so innocently, and, as he thought, so prettily, about vice, and crime, and misery; about one brother transported, one a thief—and you see he could love his sister even to the very end of it all. Strange babble indeed from a child's lips.
He thought of it again and again, and then, dressing himself plainly, he went up to Grosvenor Square, where Mary would be walking with Lord Charles Herries's children. He wanted to hear them talk.
He was right in his calculations; the children were there. All three of them this time; and Mary was there too. They were close to the rails, and he leant his back on them, and heard every word.
"Miss Corby," said Gus, "if Lady Ascot is such a good woman, she will go to heaven when she dies?"
"Yes, indeed, my dear," said Mary.
"And, when grandma dies, will she go to heaven, too?" said the artful Gus, knowing as well as possible that old Lady Hainault and Lady Ascot were deadly enemies.
"I hope so, my dear," said Mary.
"But does Lady Ascot hope so? Do you think grandma would be happy if——"