“That is not so easy to reply to; but I tell you, if you ask me, that I 'd rather not believe one word of it.” “Nor need you. His Colonel told me something about the young fellow's difficulties; he himself related the rest. He went most recklessly into debt; betted largely on races, and lost; lent freely, and lost; raised at ruinous interest, and renewed at still more ruinous; but his father has paid every shilling of it out of that fortune which one day was to have come to him, so that Lionel's thirty thousand pounds is now about eight thousand. I have put the whole story into the fewest possible words, but that's the substance of it.” “And has it cured him of extravagance?” “Of course it has not. How should it? _You_ have lived some more years in the world than he has, and I a good many more than _you_, and will you tell me that time has cured either of us of any of our old shortcomings? _Non sum quails eram_ means, I can't be as wild as I used to be.” “No, no; I won't agree to that. I protest most strongly against the doctrine. Many men are wiser through experience, and, consequently, better.” “I sincerely believe I knew the world better at four-and-twenty than I know it now. The reason why we are less often deceived in after than in early life is not that we are more crafty or more keen-eyed. It is simply because we risk less. Let us hazard as much at sixty as we once did at six-and-twenty, and we 'll lose as heavily.” The vicar paused a few moments over the other's words, and then said, “To come back to this young man, I half suspect he has formed an attachment to Lucy, and that he is doing his utmost to succeed in her favor.” “And is there anything wrong in that, doctor?” “Not positively wrong; but there is what may lead to a great deal of unhappiness. Who is to say how Trafford's family would like the connection? Who is to answer for Lendrick's approval of Trafford?” “You induce me to make a confidence I have no right to impart; but I rely so implicitly on your discretion. I will tell you what was intrusted to me as a secret: Trafford has already written to his father to ask his consent.” “Without speaking to Lendrick? without even being sure of Lucy's?”