"Boys will be boys," she says, forgetting that Neil is over thirty years
of age, and she keeps his breakfast warm for him, and gets up to let him
in when he has staid later than usual at the Ridge House, where he is a
frequent visitor, for he and Allen Browne are fast friends and boon
companions. Together they ride and drive, and row on the lakes around
Allington; together they smoke and lounge on the broad piazza of the
Ridge House, but Neil never drinks or plays with Allen, or any one else,
for his aunt made it a condition of her friendship, that he should never
touch a drop of anything which could intoxicate, or soil his hands with
cards, even for amusement. The shadow of that awful tragedy at Monte
Carlo is over her still, and she looks upon anything like card-playing
as savoring of the pit.
Allen Browne is a young man of elegant leisure, who takes perfumed
baths, and wears an overcoat which comes nearly to his feet, and a
collar which cuts his ears. He is a graduate from Harvard, and his
mother says his 'schoolin' has cost over fifteen thousand dollars,
though where under the sun and moon the money went she can't contrive.
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