“I hope not. Dear, how cold it is: will you shut the window? pray forgive my troubling you, but you _would_ send away the women. Join the army, you say? It is a very dangerous profession; your poor father might be alive now but for having embraced it; nevertheless, in a righteous cause, under the Lord of Hosts, there is great glory to be obtained beneath its banners. Alas, however, for its private evils! alas, for the orphan and the widow! You will be sure, my dear son, to give the note to Madame Tourville herself? Her assistants have not her knowledge of my misfortunes, nor indeed of my exact proportions; and at my age, and in my desolate state, I would fain be decorous in these things, and that reminds me of dinner. Have you aught else to say, Morton?” “Yes!” said I, suppressing my emotions, “yes, Mother! do bestow on me one warm wish, one kind word, before we part: see,--I kneel for your blessing,--will you not give it me?” “Bless you, my child,--bless you! look you now; I have dropped my needle!” I rose hastily, bowed profoundly (my mother returned the courtesy with the grace peculiar to herself), and withdrew. I hurried into the great drawing-room, found Lady Needleham alone, rushed out in despair, encountered the Lady Hasselton, and coquetted with her the rest of the evening. Vain hope! to forget one’s real feelings by pretending those one never felt! The next morning, then, after suitable adieux to all (Gerald excepted) whom I left behind; after some tears too from my uncle, which, had it not been for the presence of the Lady Hasselton, I could have returned with interest; and after a long caress to his dog Ponto, which now, in parting with that dear old man, seemed to me as dog never seemed before, I hurried into the Beauty’s carriage, bade farewell forever to the Rubicon of Life, and commenced my career of manhood and citizenship by learning, under the tuition of the prettiest coquette of her time, the dignified duties of a Court Gallant and a Town Beau. BOOK II. CHAPTER I. THE HERO IN LONDON.--PLEASURE IS OFTEN THE SHORTEST, AS IT IS THE EARLIEST ROAD TO WISDOM, AND WE MAY SAY OF THE WORLD WHAT ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND-BUSY SAYS OF THE PIG-BOOTH, “WE ESCAPE SO MUCH OF THE OTHER VANITIES BY OUR EARLY ENTERING.” IT had, when I first went to town, just become the fashion for young men of fortune to keep house, and to give their bachelor establishments the importance hitherto reserved for the household of a Benedict.