'It is a great pity,' went on Mrs. Lavington, meditatively, 'to see a young man so benighted and thrown away. With his vast fortune, too--such a means of good! Really we ought to have seen a little more of him. I think Mr. O'Blareaway's conversation might be a blessing to him. I think of asking him over to stay a week at Whitford, to meet that sainted young man.' Now Argemone did not think the Reverend Panurgus O'Blareaway, incumbent of Lower Whitford, at all a sainted young man, but, on the contrary, a very vulgar, slippery Irishman; and she had, somehow, tired of her late favourite, Lord Vieuxbois; so she answered tossily enough,-- 'Really, mamma, a week of Lord Vieuxbois will be too much. We shall be bored to death with the Cambridge Camden Society, and ballads for the people.' 'I think, my dear,' said Mrs. Lavington (who had, half unconsciously to herself, more reasons than one for bringing the young lord to Whitford), 'I think, my dear, that his conversation, with all its faults, will be a very improving change for your father. I hope he's asleep.' The squire's nose answered for itself. 'Really, what between Mr. Smith, and Colonel Bracebridge, and their very ineligible friend, Mr. Mellot, whom I should never have allowed to enter my house if I had suspected his religious views, the place has become a hotbed of false doctrine and heresy. I have been quite frightened when I have heard their conversation at dinner, lest the footmen should turn infidels!' 'Perhaps, mamma,' said Honoria, slyly, 'Lord Vieuxbois might convert them to something quite as bad. How shocking if old Giles, the butler, should turn Papist!' 'Honoria, you are very silly. Lord Vieuxbois, at least can be trusted. He has no liking for low companions. HE is above joking with grooms, and taking country walks with gamekeepers.' It was lucky that it was dark, for Honoria and Argemone both blushed crimson. 'Your poor father's mind has been quite unsettled by all their ribaldry. They have kept him so continually amused, that all my efforts to bring him to a sense of his awful state have been more unavailing than ever.'