the subject discussed between Randal and Burley. It was quoted at great
length in the newspapers. And Burley started to his feet one morning,
and exclaimed, "My own thoughts! my very words! Who the devil is this
pamphleteer?"

Leonard took the newspaper from Burley's hand. The most flattering
encomiums preceded the extracts, and the extracts were as stereotypes of
Burley's talk.

"Can you doubt the author?" cried Leonard, in deep disgust and ingenuous
scorn. "The young man who came to steal your brains, and turn your
knowledge--"

"Into power," interrupted Burley, with a laugh,--but it was a laugh of
pain. "Well, this was very mean; I shall tell him so when he comes."

"He will come no more," said Leonard. Nor did Randal come again. But he
sent Mr. Burley a copy of the pamphlet with a polite note, saying, with
candid but careless acknowledgment, that he "had profited much by Mr.
Burley's hints and remarks."

And now it was in all the papers that the pamphlet which had made so
great a noise was by a very young man, Mr. Audley Egerton's relation.
And high hopes were expressed of the future career of Mr. Randal Leslie.

Burley still attempted to laugh, and still his pain was visible. Leonard
most cordially despised and hated Randal Leslie, and his heart moved to
Burley with noble but perilous compassion. In his desire to soothe and
comfort the man whom he deemed cheated out of fame, he forgot the caution
he had hitherto imposed on himself, and yielded more and more to the