He had dressed himself in his best array; and as he had--at any rate for the present moment--been frightened out of his libations, he was prepared to make himself as agreeable as possible.

His mother waited on him almost as a slave might have done; but she seemed to do so with the fear of a slave rather than the love of a mother.

She was fidgety in her attentions, and worried him by endeavouring to make her evening sitting-room agreeable.
But Sir Louis, though he was not very sweetly behaved under these manipulations from his mother's hands, was quite complaisant to Miss Thorne; nay, after the expiration of a week he was almost more than complaisant.

He piqued himself on his gallantry, and now found that, in the otherwise dull seclusion of Boxall Hill, he had a good opportunity of exercising it.

To do him justice it must be admitted that he would not have been incapable of a decent career had he stumbled upon some girl who could have loved him before he stumbled upon his maraschino bottle.