Charles made no reply, for his attention was once more engaged by the girl, who, with a flushed cheek, and all the speed she could muster, passed them at that moment, and the Judge had succeeded in diverting Lady Annette's thoughts to another channel. "Thornley should be an able antagonist," said she, "I am told he is very clever. It was but t'other day that, in looking over one of his mother's old letters from Florence, I recollected she had mentioned his Italian tutor's predictions of the great figure he should make at Cambridge. By the way, Charles, he was your class-fellow there. How far were they fulfilled?" "The only time ever I remember him to make a figure," answered Charles, vainly endeavoring to suppress a smile, "was, when he refused the challenge of a wild Welsh student, on whose pranks he had been rather censorious, saying a duel was contrary to his principles; and though the Welshman actually insulted him in the very streets, he preferred a formal apology to fighting." "What a high-principled young man!" exclaimed Lady Annette and her niece in the same breath. "Yes," said the Judge, "so much conscientiousness and moral courage is worth a world of talent." "It must be a comfort," continued her ladyship with enthusiasm, "to Mr. Thornley, to find the pains bestowed on his son's education so well repaid. Do you know he would never allow him to enter a public school, saying, that knowledge in such places was paid for with both morals and manners; and Edmund was educated under his own eye, by some of the best scholars in Florence." "Mr. Thornley had great discernment," remarked the Judge; "I wonder he didn't show it, more in his pecuniary affairs." "Ah, what a falling off was there!" half sighed Lady Annette. "It vexes me to think of it, they were such old friends of ours. What a belle poor Mrs. Thornley was!--they tell me she has grown very old and dowdy now. And how he used to sport! and yet one might have known the estate would go to creditors. But his misfortunes improved him greatly, they say, turned his attention entirely to high subjects--Italian progress, and all that. Do you know, when they lived in Florence, the Austrian police had quite an eye upon him, and he was proud of that, poor man! I wish you had seen his letters."