"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the pretty young widow, with a smile. "Is that it? The restraint of home has been found too much at last—we must have freedom, and wine-parties, and cards? Well, who can wonder at it? I warned your father years ago of the folly of not sending you to college; you would have had all that over by this time, like other young men; but no, the future Champion of the Proletariat was not to have his mind contaminated by the sons of squires. Well, and where have the princely apartments been chosen? In Piccadilly, of course—yellow satin and golden goblets." "You are quite mistaken, aunt," he said, simply. "The rooms I hope to get to-morrow are in a quiet little street that I dare say you never heard of: if you saw it, you might probably call it shimmy." "Oh, is that it?" she said again, for her brain was nimble and swift in the construction of theories. "Then you are really going to put some of your father’s principles into practice, and to consort with the masses? I’ve often wondered when he was going to begin himself. You know how he declares it to be monstrous that there should be people of your own race, and colour, and religion, whom you would hesitate to ask to sit down at the same table as yourself; but I have not heard him as yet invite Jack the crossing-sweeper or Tom from the stable-yard to come in and dine with him. And if they came in without an invitation, taking him at his word, as it were, I’m afraid their reception wouldn’t be warm—yes, it would be remarkably warm—they’d be thrown out of the front-door in a couple of seconds. So you are going slumming, is that it? You want to understand the great heart of the people—before you lead them on to anarchy and universal plunder?" "Aunt," said he, with a smile, "you mustn’t say such things to me; you mustn’t pour reactionary poison into my young mind. No; I am going to retire into that quiet little corner of London simply to get on with my books; and as I shan’t let anybody know where it is, I can’t be disturbed." "Do you mean to live there altogether?" she asked, glancing quickly at him. "Shall you sleep there?" "Oh, no. I shall come home here each evening." "To dinner? But it is no use asking you that; for you never seem to care where you dine, or whether you dine at all. Have you told your father of this scheme?" "No, not yet," he made answer; and he could say nothing further just then, for at this moment Harland Harris and his guest came upstairs from the dining-room, and Mr. Ogden proceeded to engage the young widow in ponderous conversation.