profess to obey its laws, adore its institutions, and, above all--oh, how
righteously!--attack all those who attack it, and who yet lie and cheat
and defraud and peculate,--publicly reaping all the comforts, privately
filching all the profits. Repent!--of what? I come into the world
friendless and poor; I find a body of laws hostile to the friendless and
the poor! To those laws hostile to me, then, I acknowledge hostility in
my turn. Between us are the conditions of war. Let them expose a
weakness,--I insist on my right to seize the advantage; let them defeat
me, and I allow their right to destroy."--[The author need not, he hopes,
observe that these sentiments are Mr. Paul Clifford's, not his.]

"Passion," said Augustus, coolly, "is the usual enemy of reason; in your
case it is the friend."

The pair had now gained the summit of a hill which commanded a view of
the city below. Here Augustus, who was a little short-winded, paused to
recover breath. As soon as he had done so, he pointed with his
forefinger to the scene beneath, and said enthusiastically, "What a
subject for contemplation!"

Clifford was about to reply, when suddenly the sound of laughter and
voices was heard behind. "Let us fly!" cried Augustus; "on this day of
spleen man delights me not--or woman either."

"Stay!" said Clifford, in a trembling accent; for among those voices he
recognized one which had already acquired over him an irresistible and
bewitching power. Augustus sighed, and reluctantly remained motionless.
Presently a winding in the road brought into view a party of pleasure,
some on foot, some on horseback, others in the little vehicles which even
at that day haunted watering-places, and called themselves "Flies" or