‘My dear Lord Will, you almost make me cry over you in the character of youthful prophet, and myself in that of the inexperienced novice. You are a Daniel come to judgment; but surely you have too bad an opinion of the poor world.’
‘I hope you will think so when you come to try it,’ he said. And then looking up suddenly he was caught by the gleam of fun in Lady William’s eye.
‘I believe,’ he said, ‘you are laughing at me and my advice all the time.’
‘I shall not perhaps require to take advantage of it,’ she said evasively, ‘till next year: and one can never tell what wonderful things may happen before that time.’
It was Lord Will’s decision as he went away that his dear aunt was much ‘deeper’ than he had given her credit for being, and that perhaps to be chary of advice might be better on the whole. But he came back in the afternoon, and also next morning before he went away, and was very anxious to be permitted to be of use to the ladies when they came to town—if they should come.
‘I suppose you’ll come up—for the pictures or something,’ he said, ‘or to go to the opera, or that sort of thing?—when a fellow that knows his way about might be of use. Drop me a line, Aunt William. There is nothing I like so much as being of use.’
‘I like a day in town,’ said Mab, who this time was present. ‘Don’t you think, mother, it’s a good idea? There are a number of things I want to see. I should like to go to the Row with somebody who could tell me who everybody was. And if Cousin Will can spare the time——’
‘I shall take care to spare the time, Cousin Mab.’
‘And you can tell me who everybody is?’
‘Oh! I know a few of the swells,’ the young man responded modestly; and an appointment was accordingly made. But in the evening, when they were alone together, Mab made inquiries into the sudden cordiality of her cousin. ‘Why should he have come back again so soon? I am sure you did not wish him to come back: and why should he be so kind? He was not kind like this when he was here before. And you look either as if you were very happy about it, or as if it were a capital joke.’