He was a little too apt to take upon himself the character of Mentor; and, strange to say, he was aware of his own fault in this particular.

Thus, though the temptation to preach was very powerful, he refrained himself for a while.

His present desire was to say soft things rather than sharp words; and though lecturing was at this moment much easier to him than love-making, he bethought himself of his object, and controlled the spirit of morality which was strong within him.
'But we were so happy before your uncle came,' he said, speaking with his sweetest voice, and looking at the beautiful girl beside him with all the love he was able to throw into his handsome face.
'And we are happy now that he has come--or at any rate ought to be,' said Gertrude, doing a little in the Mentor line herself, now that the occasion came in her way.
'Ah! Gertrude, you know very well there is only one thing can make me happy,' said Harry.
'Why, you unreasonable man! just now you said you were perfectly happy before Captain Cuttwater came, I suppose the one thing now necessary is to send him away again.' 'No, Gertrude, the thing necessary is to take you away.' 'What! out of the contamination of poor old Uncle Bat's bottle of rum?
But, Harry, you see it would be cowardly in me to leave mamma and Linda to suffer the calamity alone.' 'I wonder, Gertrude, whether, in your heart of hearts, you really care a straw about me,' said Harry, who was now very sentimental and somewhat lachrymose.
'You know we all care very much about you, and it is very wrong in you to express such a doubt,' said Gertrude, with a duplicity that was almost wicked; as if she did not fully understand that the kind of 'caring' of which Norman spoke was of a very different nature from the general 'caring' which she, on his behalf, shared with the rest of her family.
'All of you--yes, but I am not speaking of all of you; I am speaking of you, Gertrude--you in particular.

Can you ever love me well enough to be my wife ?' 'Well, there is no knowing what I may be able to do in three or four years' time; but even that must depend very much on how you behave yourself in the mean time.

If you get cross because Captain Cuttwater has come here, and snub Alaric and Linda, as you did last night, and scold at mamma because she chooses to let her own uncle live in her own house, why, to tell you the truth, I don't think I ever shall.' All persons who have a propensity to lecture others have a strong constitutional dislike to being lectured themselves.