"Throw herself away! Well, Tod, opinions vary. _I_ think she was lucky to get him. As to his being low, we don't know that he is. Putting aside that one mysterious episode of his being down at our place in hiding, which I suppose we shall never come to the bottom of, we know nothing of what Everty has, or has not been." "You shut up, Johnny. Common sense is common sense." "Everty's being here--we can't associate with him, you know, Tod--affords a good opportunity for breaking off the visits to High Street." "Who wants to break off the visits to High Street?" "I do, for one. Madame Sophie's is a dangerous atmosphere." "Dangerous for you, Johnny?" "Not a bit of it. _You_ know. Be wise in time, old fellow." "Of all the muffs living, Johnny, you are about the greatest. In the old days you feared I might go in for marrying Sophie Chalk. I don't see what you can fear now. Do you suppose I should run away with another man's wife?" "Nonsense, Tod!" "Well, what else is it? Come! Out with it." "Do you think our people or the Whitneys would like it if they knew we are intimate with her?" "They'd not die of it, I expect." "I don't like her, Tod. It is not a nice thing of her to allow the play and the betting, and to have all those fellows there when they choose to go." Tod took his shoulder from the mantelpiece, and sat down to his imposition: one he had to write for having missed chapel. "You mean well, Johnny, though you are a muff." Later in the day I met Dr. Applerigg. He signed to me to stop. "Mr. Ludlow, I find that what you told me this morning was true. And I withdraw every word of condemnation that I spoke. I wish I had never greater cause to find fault than I have with you, in regard to this matter. Not that I can sanction your being out so late, although the plea of excuse _be_ a dying man. You understand?" "Yes, sir. It shall not occur again." Down at the house in Stagg's Entry, that evening, Mrs. Cann met me on the stairs. "One of the great college doctors was here to-day, sir. He came up asking all manner of questions about you--whether you'd been here till a'most midnight yesterday, and what you'd stayed so late for, and--and all about it." Dr. Applerigg! "What did you tell him, Mrs. Cann?" "Tell him, sir! what should I tell him but the truth? That you had stayed here late because of Charley's being took worse and nobody with him, and had read the burial service to him for his asking; and that you came most evenings, and was just as good to him as gold. He said he'd see Charley for himself then; and he went in and talked to him, oh so gently and nicely about his soul; and gave little Nanny half-a-crown when he went away. Sometimes it happens, sir, that those who look to have the hardest faces have the gentlest hearts. And Charley's dying, sir. He was took worse again this evening at five o'clock, and I hardly thought he'd have lasted till now. The doctor has been, and thinks he'll go off quietly."