indulgences offered the soporific to remorse. The friends of the two
imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius. In
reality, Edward was the perilous companion. He was composed of better
stuff. Algernon was but an airy animal nature, the soul within him being
an effervescence lightly let loose. Edward had a fatally serious spirit,
and one of some strength. What he gave himself up to, he could believe
to be correct, in the teeth of an opposing world, until he tired of it,
when he sided as heartily with the world against his quondam self.
Algernon might mislead, or point his cousin's passions for a time; yet if
they continued their courses together, there was danger that Algernon
would degenerate into a reckless subordinate--a minister, a valet, and be
tempted unknowingly to do things in earnest, which is nothing less than
perdition to this sort of creature.

But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it, the
romantic sentiment nourished by them. Edward aspired to become
Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge
is to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable,
but not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray, and
fights commonly on the winning side,--a point that renders his position
attractive to sagacious youth. Algernon had other views. Civilization
had tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it. Moreover,
sitting now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge. No wonder,
then, that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests, and
Australian wilds. He believed in his heart that he would be a man new
made over there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a bath
that would cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being unclean
for the present.

The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a