"I suppose you mean that if it's only your mother who's told, you may depend on her to shield you." Harold turned this over as if it were a questionable sovereign, but on second thoughts he wonderfully smiled.

"Do you think that after you've let me have it you can tell?
You could, of course, if you hadn't." He appeared to work it out for Mr.Cashmore's benefit.

"But I don't mind," he added, "your telling mamma." "Don't mind, you mean really, its annoying her so awfully ?" The invitation to repent thrown off in this could only strike the young man as absurd--it was so previous to any enjoyment.

Harold liked things in their proper order; but at the same time his evolutions were quick.
"I dare say I AM selfish, but what I was thinking was that the terrific wigging, don't you know ?--well, I'd take it from HER.

She knows about one's life--about our having to go on, by no fault of our own, as our parents start us.