"
"There is plenty of wrong without that, Jock. While you never heed
anything but fun and amusement I do not see how you are to come to
anything worth having; and you will soon get betrayed into something
unworthy. Don't let me have to take you away in disgrace, my boy; it
would break my heart."
"You shan't have to do that, mother."
"But don't you think it would be wiser to be somewhere with fewer
inducements to idleness?"
"Leave Eton? O no, mother! I can't do that till the last day
possible. I shall be in the eight another year."
"You will not be here another year unless you go on very differently.
Your tutor will not allow it, if I would."
"Has he said so?"
"Yes; and the next half is to be the trial."
Jock applied himself to extracting a horsehair from the stuffing of
the elbow of his chair; and there was a look over his face as near
sullenness as ever came to his gay, careless nature.
Would he attend? or even could he?
When his bills came in Caroline feared, as before, that he was the
one of all her children whom Belforest was most damaging. Allen was
expensive, but in an elegant, exquisite kind of way; but Jock was
simply reckless ; and his pleasures were questionable enough to be on
the borders of vices, which might change the frank, sweet, merry face
that now looked up to her into a countenance stained by dissipation
and licence!
A flash of horror and dismay followed the thought! But what could
she do for him, or for any of her children? Censure only alienated
them and made them worse, and their love for her was at least one
blessing.
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