length. You have done so much for him, you
are so fond of him; your whole life, Mrs.
Bounderby, expresses such charming self-
forgetfulness on his account—pardon me
again—I am running wide of the subject. I
am interested in him for his own sake."

She had made the slightest action possible,
as if she would have risen in a hurry and gone
away. He had turned the course of what he
said at that instant, and she remained.

"Mrs. Bounderby," he resumed, in a lighter
manner, and yet with a show of effort in
assuming it, which was even more expressive
than the manner he dismissed; "it is no
irrevocable offence in a young fellow of your
brother's years, if he is heedless, inconsiderate,
and expensive—a little dissipated, in the
common phrase.  Is he?"

"Yes."

"Allow me to be frank.  Do you think he
games at all?"

"I think he makes bets."  Mr. Harthouse
waiting, as if that were not her whole answer,
she added, "I know he does."

"Of course he loses?"

"Yes."

"Everybody loses who bets.  May I hint
at the probability of your sometimes supplying
him with money for these purposes?"

She sat, looking down; but, at this question,
raised her eyes searchingly and a little
resentfully.

"Acquit me of impertinent curiosity, my
dear Mrs. Bounderby.  I think Tom may
be gradually falling into trouble, and I wish
to stretch out a helping hand to him from the
depths of my wicked experience.—Shall I say
again, for his sake?  Is that necessary?"

She seemed to try to answer, but nothing
came of it.

"Candidly to confess everything that has
occured to me," said James Harthouse, again
gliding with the same appearance of effort
into his more airy manner; "I will confide
to you my doubt whether he has had many
advantages.  Whether—forgive my plainness
—whether any great amount of confidence is
likely to have been established between
himself and his most worthy father."

"I do not," said Louisa, flushing with her
own great remembrance in that wise, "think it
likely."

"Or, between himself, and—I may trust to
your perfect understanding of my meaning I
am sure—and his highly esteemed brother-in-
law."

She flushed deeper and deeper, and was
burning red when she replied in a fainter
voice, "I do not think that likely, either."

"Mrs. Bounderby," said Harthouse, after
a short silence, "may there be a better
confidence between yourself and me?  Tom has
borrowed a considerable sum of you?"

"You will understand, Mr. Harthouse,"
she returned, after some indecision: she had
been more or less uncertain, and troubled
throughout the conversation, and yet had in
the main preserved her self-contained
manner: " you will understand that if I tell you
what you press to know, it is not by way of
complaint or regret. I would never complain
of anything, and what I have done I do not
in the least regret."

"So spirited, too!" thought James
Harthouse.

"When I married, I found that my brother
was even at that time heavily in debt.
Heavily for him, I mean. Heavily enough
to oblige me to sell some trinkets. They
were no sacrifice. I sold them very willingly.
I attached no value to them. They were quite
worthless to me."

Either she saw in his face that he knew, or
she only feared in her conscience that he knew,
that she spoke of some of her husband's gifts.
She stopped, and reddened again. If he had
not known it before, he would have known it
then, though he had been a much duller man
than he was.

"Since then, I have given my brother, at
various times, what money I could spare: in
short, what money I have had.  Confiding in
you at all, on the faith of the interest you
profess for him, I will not do so by
halves.  Since you have been in the habit of
visiting here, he has wanted in one sum as
much as a hundred pounds.  I have not
been able to give it to him.  I have felt
uneasy for the consequences of his being so
involved, but I have kept these secrets until
now, when I trust them to your honour.  I
have held no confidence with anyone, because
—you anticipated my reason just now."  She
abruptly broke off.

He was a ready man, and he saw, and
seized, an opportunity here of presenting her
own image to her, slightly disguised as her
brother.

"Mrs. Bounderby, though a graceless person,
of the world worldly, I feel the utmost
interest, I assure you, in what you tell me.  I
cannot possibly be hard upon your brother.  I
understand and share the wise consideration
with which you regard his errors.  With all
possible respect both for Mr. Gradgrind and
for Mr Bounderby, I think I perceive that
he has not been fortunate in his training.
Bred at a disadvantage towards the society
in which he has his part to play, he rushes
into these extremes for himself, from opposite
extremes that have long been forced—with the
very best intentions we have no doubt—upon
him.  Mr. Bounderby's fine bluff English
independence, though a most charming
characteristic, does not—as we have agreed—
invite confidence.  If I might venture to
remark that it is the least in the world
deficient in that delicacy to which a youth
mistaken, a character misconceived, and
abilities misdirected, would turn for relief
and guidance, I should express what it
presents to my own view."

As she sat looking straight before her, across
the changing lights upon the grass into the