The young man could not come to the Lodge very often, even if Miss Gascoigne invited him ever so much, and was really as charmed with him as she appeared to be.

And no wonder.

He was one of those men who charm every body--perhaps because he was not deliberately bad, else how could he have attracted Christian Oakley?
He had that rare combination of a brilliant intellect, an esthetic fancy, strong passions, and a weak moral nature, which makes some of the most dangerous and fatal characters the world ever sees.
But, be he what he might, he could not force his presence upon Christian against her will.

"No, I am not afraid," she said to herself; "how could I be--with these ?" For, all the time she sat meditating Arthur lay half asleep, near her; and little Oliver, who had returned to his old habit of creeping about her room whenever he could, sat playing with his box of bricks on the hearth-rug at her feet, every now and then lifting up eyes of such heavenly depth of innocence that she felt almost a sort of compassion for the erring man who had no such child-angels in his home--nothing and no one to make him good, or to teach him, ere it was too late, that, even in this world, the wages of sin is death, and that the only true life is that of purity and holiness.
Christian spent the whole afternoon with her children.

They tried her a good deal, for Arthur was fractious, and Oliver went into one of his storms of passion, which upon him, as once upon his elder brother, were increasing day by day.