“You!” Mamma looked with motherly anxiety, mixed with disapproval. It was so impossible, even with the aid of all partialities, to make out Charlie to be handsome. And Miss Anastasia came of a handsome race, and had a prejudice in favour of good looks. Then, though his large loose limbs began to be a little more firmly knitted and less unmanageable, and though he was now drawing near eighteen, he was still only a boy. “My dear,” said Mrs Atheling, “she is a very particular old lady, and takes dislikes sometimes, and very proud besides, and might not desire to be intruded on; and I think, after all, as you do not know her, and they do, I think it would be much better if the girls were to go.” “The girls!” exclaimed Charlie with a boy’s contempt--“a great deal they know about the business! You listen to me, mother. I’ve been reading up hard for six months, and I know something about the evidence that does for a court of law--women don’t--it’s not in reason; for I’d like to see the woman that could stand old Foggo’s office, pegging in at these old fellows for precedent, and all that stuff. You don’t suppose I mind what your old lady thinks of me--and I know what I want, which is the main thing, after all. You tell me where she lives--that’s all I want to know--and see if I don’t make something of it before another day.” “Where she lives?--it is six miles off, Charlie: you don’t know the way--and, indeed, you don’t know her either, my poor boy.” “Don’t you trouble about that--that’s my business, mother,” said Charlie; “and a man can’t lose his way in the country unless he tries--a long road, and a fingerpost at every crossing. When a man wants to lose himself, he had better go to the City--there’s no fear in your plain country roads. You set me on the right way--you know all the places hereabout--and just for this once, mother, trust me, and let me manage it my own way.” “I always did trust you, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling evasively; but she did not half like her son’s enterprise, and greatly objected to put Miss Anastasia’s friendship in jeopardy by such an intrusion as this. However, the young gentleman now declared himself tired, and was conducted up-stairs in state, by his mother and sisters--first to Mrs Atheling’s own room to inspect it, and kiss, half reluctantly, half with genuine fondness, the little slumbering cherub faces of Bell and Beau. Then he had a glimpse of the snowy decorations of that young-womanly and pretty apartment of his sisters, and was finally ushered into the little back-room, his own den, from which the lumber had been cleared on purpose for his reception. They left him then to his repose, and dreams, if the couch of this young gentleman was ever visited by such fairy visitants, and retired again themselves to that dim parlour, to read over in conclave Papa’s letter, and hold a final consultation as to what everybody should do.