"
"The worst is, it's true. I do fall into all sorts of scrapes, and I have
got out of money, and I do idle my time away," acknowledged the young man
in his candour. "And all the while, Anne, I am thinking and hoping to do
right. If ever I get set on my legs again, _won't_ I keep on them!"
"But how many times have you said so before!" she whispered.
"Half the follies for which I am now paying were committed when I was but
a boy," he said. "One of the men now visiting here, Dawkes, persuaded me
to put my name to a bill for him for fifteen hundred pounds, and I had to
pay it. It hampered me for years; and in the end I know I must have paid
it twice over. I might have pleaded that I was under age when he got my
signature, but it would have been scarcely honourable to do so."
"And you never profited by the transaction?"
"Never by a sixpence. It was done for Dawkes's accommodation, not mine.
He ought to have paid it, you say? My dear, he is a man of straw, and
never had fifteen hundred pounds of his own in his life."
"Does Lord Hartledon know of this? I wonder he has him here."
"I did not mention it at the time; and the thing's past and done with. I
only tell you now to give you an idea of the nature of my embarrassments
and scrapes. Not one in ten has really been incurred for myself: they
only fall upon me. One must buy experience."
Terribly vexed was that sweet face, an almost painful sadness upon the
generally sunny features.
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