The plan adopted by Mrs.Tudor was that of beseeching their cousin Alaric to take Charley under his especial wing.
When Charley first arrived in town, the fact of Alaric and Norman living together had given the former a good excuse for not offering to share his lodgings with his cousin.

Alaric, with the advantage in age of three or four years--at that period of life the advantage lies in that direction--with his acquired experience of London life, and also with all the wondrous eclat of the Weights and Measures shining round him, had perhaps been a little too unwilling to take by the hand a rustic cousin who was about to enter life under the questionable auspices of the Internal Navigation.

He had helped Charley to transcribe the chapter of Gibbon, and had, it must be owned, lent him from time to time a few odd pounds in his direst necessities.

But their course in life had hitherto been apart.

Of Norman, Charley had seen less even than of his cousin.
And now it became a difficult question with Alaric how he was to answer the direct appeal made to him by Mrs.Tudor;--'Pray, pray let him live with you, if it be only for a year, Alaric,' the mother had said, with the tears running down her cheeks.